I love the hair, but this photo feels a little….shell-shocked and perhaps mildly irked. Well, who isn’t. (The subscribers’ cover, which you can click through and see at the magazine, is more striking but definitely not newsstand-friendly; it’s artistic but perhaps not very commercial. Man, it’s hard to be a glossy mag right now. Sincerely.)

As far as the profile goes, I am fond of Nicole and she does nothing to change that herein — although I did not enjoy Nine Perfect Strangers as much as the magazine (by necessity, of course!) purports to — and there’s also video footage of Nicole, like, caressing a tree which is fun and kind of has a Satine Faked Her Own Death and Now Lives Anonymously in Bali, which is the only sequel to Moulin Rouge that I will entertain. I thought this was very interesting:

Kidman doesn’t discuss the divorce [from Tom Cruise] in interviews. (Was it over Scientology? Only she knows.) But when I ask whether she felt annoyed by the press focusing so maniacally on her relationship, she says simply, “I was young. I think I offered it up?” She laughs. “Maybe I’ve gotten a bit more trepidatious, but I’m always trying to be as open as possible. I just prefer to live in the world that way.” She is quiet for a moment. “I’m wary at times, and I’ve been hurt, but at the same time I much prefer a warm approach rather than a prickly shutdown approach. My husband, Keith, says that when he met me, he said, ‘How’s your heart?’ And I apparently responded, ‘Open.’”

She goes on to talk about Keith Urban in a way that is very sweet — I didn’t really know much about how they met — and shares a lot of thoughtful stuff about the nature of her job, and of being an artist. It’s smart, and interesting — worth a noodle if you’re looking for one.

[Photographed by: Collier Schorr]