Kidman says marriage comes before career

Oscar winner Nicole Kidman is one of Hollywood’s top actresses, but she says for the moment her marriage to country music star Keith Urban takes priority over her career.

Kidman, who says she “spontaneously” chooses most of her roles, has had some recent high-profile flops, like 2004’s “The Stepford Wives,” 2005’s “Bewitched” and 2007’s “The Invasion,” since winning an Oscar in 2003 for playing novelist Virginia Woolf in the “The Hours.”

While promoting her latest movie, “Margot at the Wedding” in New York, the Australian actress, 40, said her main concern was her relationship with Urban, whom she married in June 2006 in Sydney.

Grammy-winning Urban spent two months in a rehab center last year, but did not disclose the nature of his treatment. He has acknowledged an addiction to cocaine in the past and credits Kidman with seeing him through his crisis.

As for Kidman she told a group of reporters: “I just recently married so that’s my priority. I love my work but at the same time I don’t want to do it without having somebody else in my life to share that with.”

A recent Forbes.com study of actors box office return on their salary ranked Kidman at No. 18 out of 22 actors with a return of $8 for each $1 she was paid. This compares to Matt Damon, ranked No. 1, who earned $29 for each $1.

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But Kidman, who split from actor Tom Cruise in 2001 after nearly 10 years of marriage, says she is just interested in doing good work.

“I’m interested in working with complex, really, really good directors and sometimes that results in great films and sometimes that results in some films that were reaching high and didn’t get there,” she said.

She said earning a high salary for a big film lets her pick smaller art house films that she wants to do like “Margot at the Wedding,” which opens on Friday.

In “Margot at the Wedding,” Kidman plays a short-story writer, Margot, who creates chaos ahead of the planned wedding of her estranged sister Pauline, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, to artist Malcolm, played by Jack Black.

Since April, Kidman has been in Australia filming Baz Luhrmann’s big budget epic “Australia” with Hugh Jackman. She plays an English aristocrat who inherits a massive cattle station in outback Australia prior to World War Two.

“It’s the film I dreamed of making when I was a little girl,” she said.

“I hope it lives up to my expectations because I wanted to make a film that’s deeply romantic, that’s got a magical quality to it, but is still a sweeping drama, sprinkled with some comedy so if we can pull that off I will be very very pleased,” she said.

“We’re certainly working hard toward putting something magical on screen.”

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