Nicole Kidman

Kidman returned to arthouses with the comedy-drama “Margot at the Wedding” (2007) by “Squid and the Whale” (2005) director and screenwriter Noah Baumbach. In this film, Kidman was in familiar territory as a neurotic writer who clashes with her sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh) over her choice of fiancée (Jack Black). She then shifted gears to play a villainess (her first in her career) in the epic fantasy “The Golden Compass” (2007), an elaborate adaptation of Philip Pullman’s The Northern Lights, the first novel in the massively popular His Dark Materials trilogy. In 2008, Luhrmann tapped Kidman to star in the World War II era epic "Australia" (2008), co-starring fellow Aussie and friend Hugh Jackman, but the expectedly elaborate production was a dismal failure with critics and only brought in box office numbers overseas. The actress gave birth to a daughter, Sunday Rose, with husband Keith Urban that summer and returned to theaters in 2009 in Rob Marshall’s adaptation of the 1982 Tony Award-winning musical “Nine” (2009). Echoing its original source material, Federico Fellini’s “8 ½” (1963), the film starred Daniel Day-Lewis as an aging filmmaker struggling to finish a film while preoccupied with complicated relationships with his wife (Marion Cotillard) and his film star muse (Kidman).