GOSSIPS

Always…Kidman the kidder . From Cannes to Camus!!

Nicole Kidman raised a few eyebrows in London when she laughed loudly from the audience during Albert Camus' tragedy Caligula. With an Oscar, a Fashion Icon Award and speculation swirling around a possible Cruise-Cruz breakup, Nicole Kidman seems to be having the last laugh. But MSNBC.com reports Kidman attended the play at London's Donmar Warehouse - where, coincidentally, she once took off her clothes in The Blue Room - and shocked other theatre-goers by reportedly laughing loudly throughout the production. Everyone was delighted to see Nicole in the audience, but most people were rather surprised by her response to the performance. Kidman's guffawing became so rowdy that the play's leading man, Michael Sheen, heard her onstage. "I was surprised and a bit worried at the amount of laughter that I heard," Sheen told the Telegraph. "I don't think Camus actually intended it to be funny. After all, it is a tragedy." Meanwhile, Kidman will not play Katharine Hepburn or Ava Gardner in Martin Scorsese's upcoming The Aviator, about the life of Howard Hughes, The New York Post's Liz Smith reports. Nicole met with Scorsese because she was anxious to work with one of the all-time greats. But she is committed to Mr Smith and The Stepford Wives and regretfully had to pass. Cate Blanchett will play the Great Kate, while Kate Beckinsale takes on Gardner and pop queen Gwen Stefani plays Jean Harlow. Leonardo DiCaprio will stretch his acting chops as the brilliant and weird younger Hughes.

Smoking Kidman sparks controversy. So what? Australian actress Nicole Kidman has raised the ire of anti-smoking groups by lighting up a cigarette during her press conference at the Cannes Film Festival. Footage was beamed around the world yesterday of Kidman lighting up at the annual event while promoting her new movie, Dogville. The Oscar-winning actress was immediately admonished by the film's Danish director Lars Von Trier, but Kidman shrugged her shoulders and kept smoking. It appears Kidman has smoked for years, with newspaper reports dating back to 1994 saying she had been spotted smoking. Anti-smoking groups today said the image of Kidman smoking was a free advertisement for the tobacco industry and glamorized the habit." Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) chief executive Anne Jones said Kidman was perpetuating the image that smoking was associated with glamour, independence and success." It's worth millions to the tobacco industry to have celebrities smoking," she told AAP." It's unfortunate that she smoked at a media conference that potentially went to hundreds of millions of people around the world. Ms Jones said she would write to Kidman's Australian publicist highlighting the actress's responsibilities  as   a  role  model  to  millions of young women. " She does  have a right to  smoke,   but what I'm just saying  is that smoking  in front of millions of people contains this unfortunate association between smoking and glamour and success," she said. "I will leave it to her to decide how she wants to use that information. "I think given her role model status it would be really greatly appreciated by health groups and maybe parents in general if she didn't smoke  in such a  way." Six thousand  Australian women  die each year from smoking-related illnesses, and 21 per cent of all Australian women over the age of 18 smoke. Australian Democrats Senator Lyn Allison  said tobacco use   cost $21 billion  a year in   Australia and Kidman should use her position to discourage  smoking. "Many  of  Nicole Kidman's fans  are young women  and  they have particularly alarming rates of addiction to tobacco," she said. Senator Allison called on  the  federal government to fulfill i ts  promise  to  introduce  legislation  requiring  all  films  depicting  smoking  to carry a warning.