Still, in a testament to her "show must go on" ethic, only a few weeks after her husband has filed for divorce and a few days before her subsiquent miscarriage will be revealed by the tabloid press, Kidman slips into a suite at L.A.'s Hotel Bel-Air to get the word out about her new film, Moulin Rouge, and to muse on the projects- both professional and personal- she'd like to tackle next. "Kids," she says with a smile, explaining her slight tardiness and her still-damp hair. Indeed her children- Isabella, 8, and Connor, 6, who are now splitting their time between Kidman and Tom Cruise- are foremost among her concerns. Even as speculation about the marital split grows wilder, she won't go on record with any details. "I can't discuss any of it. It's just too upsetting. I'm trying to protect my kids and the future with them. And to survive and not become a victim. And I'm determined to keep my sense of humor."

Which just might be what is getting her through this period: her "sense of the ridiculous," as her mother, Janelle, calls it; the "savage comic streak" that Moulin director Baz Luhrmann says is captured in his film. Luhrman observes that one can also watch Moulin, in which Kidman plays Satine, a turn-of-the-20th-century Parisian courtesan and cabaret performer, and find parallels with the star's current challenges: "It is about the resurrection of the spirit, growth. It's a chrysalis film- breaking from the shell and taking flight. That's really what Nicole is faced with right now. To be Nicole Kidman, full stop. Nicole Kidman, solo. It never gets bigger than that." If Luhrmann is likening Kidman to a new butterfly taking wing, it seems there are some things about Nicole he doesn't yet know.

1. SHE'S SCARED OF BUTTERFLIES.
"It's so bizarre," Kidman confesses. "I'm not scared of snakes or spiders. But I'm scared of butterflies. There is something eerie about them. Something weird. I do not like to have them on me or around me." Professionally, however, Kidman is notably gutsy, in both her choice of roles and her full-throttle approach to acting. "I didn't want her to do the high-wire act in Moulin," says Luhrmann. "We wanted a stuntperson. But Nicole fought to do it. She is the person every minute swinging overhead. You know, Nicole doesn't come onto the set as if it's just another day. Anything can happen. She is a bit dangerous, in a really good sense." Though Cruise and Kidman have reputations for daredeviltry- sky-diving, scuba diving, plane-flying- Kidman says she has "backed off that now, because there are two people in the world who don't just want me around, the need me." And, she says, "sometimes I'm scared of small planes. Even though I know that's so much a part..." she pauses at the allusion of Cruise's lifestyle. "It still scared me. I don't like it."

2. SHE CAN SING.
In Moulin Rouge Kidman warbles love duets with co-star Ewan McGregor and several other numbers. "During the musical moments in the film, everyone goes, 'It can't be her! Is that really her?'" says Luhrmann. "That's a the big surprise for everyone." Even for Kidman. "Never in a million years did I think I would do that," she says. "Music was so much a part of our lives growing up, and my mum would always say, 'Gosh, I wish someday you would sing.' And I'd be like, 'Mum, they don't make movies like that anymore. Please.' She cried [when she saw Moulin]. Tears were streaming down her cheeks." In Austrailia, Kidman sang with a band called Divine Madness when she was 17. "Three girls and four guys. We did a lot of seventies stuff. I did Kate Bush, I did Blondie, I did Chaka Khan," she says. "I don't really have the raunchy voice for Tina Turner. I wish I had a Janis Joplin voice. We played at parties and one pub gig. We never got paid."

3. SHE CAN SEW.
"I'd love to design kids' clothes. When my daughter was 3 or 4, I didn't think there were any good clothes out there, so I made some. I dressed her in these knee-length black dresses and chunky shoes. And her hair in braids. Adorable. And now I'm dealing with an 8-year-old who seems like a teenager," Kidman says. She rolls her eyes as she describes and outing to Fred Segal during which Bella begged for- and eventually got- three-inch platform sandals. "At first, I said, 'No!' but then I thought, Here we go. It's fun to watch her develop her style, to encourage that strength of spirit. Being a mother, raising two kids, that is my biggest accomplishment so far. And I hope it will continue to be. I started at 25 and I'm 33 now." Later she notes, "There are a lot of single mothers these days. It's like a club. I can't wait to see what my kids are like when they are 20 or older. I have such a great relationship with my mum and my dad. I can tell them anything, and they'll do anything for me. And they have a deep friendship and love for each other. But it's realistic, not sort of kissing around ridiculously and pretending everything's great and not dealing with all the ups and downs of a 40-year marriage. I cherish that. I'm so glad I have that to hold up."

4. SHE COOKS A MEAN LAMB ROAST.
Make that a "wicked lamb roast. Put on rosmary and salt. It's my comfort food. Sunday afternoon, a glass of red wine, put on some opera and do a little cooking. That's the good life, isn't it?" What else does she fancy? "Chocolate. Ice cream. Apple martinis. We love pizza at our house. Tom and I really try to give our children a good sense of their bodies and taking care of themselves. But we both happen to have a weakness for junk food. That's how I got away today- I promised the kids pizza."

5. BUT SHE CAN'T PAINT.
"When my mother came to stay with me, part of her therapy for me was to paint. She would set me up by these beautiful French windows where the light comes in and teach me some stuff about color. I have zero talent in that area, but it's relaxing. My daughter is a beautiful painter. I told her, 'You know, you could sell some of these paintings and make some pocket money.' So her eyes lit up, and she's now got about eight special paintings, all of animals. We're going to have an exhibition where we'll serve homemade lemonade and cookies. My son does not have the same talent, though he wants to have his own exhibition," she says, laughing. "He has his own talents- he's very gymnastic. I haven't pushed them toward anything. Those are the things they have desired to do."

6. SHE MAY NEVER RUN AGAIN.
On the set of Moulin Kidman broke a rib and later tore the cartilage in her knee. "I had to do these kicks down the stairs in incredibly high heels," she says, "and I slipped. And continued to dance all that night. And worked for three more weeks on it. I just shredded it." After a post-Moulin operation, she was bedridden for two months and had to cancel her part in the film The Panic Room. "I have that athlete mentality- push through the pain. I'll never do that again. I used to run an average of 7 miles every day, 10 or 12 miles on the weekends. It was my form of meditation. Now it's gone."

7. SHE WANTS TO MAKE MONEY- FOR OTHERS.
"I've had a very strange life the part three years. I think I was very naive. Over [that time period] I've had to encounter death," she says, referring to the passing of Stanley Kubrick, who directed her and Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut (1999). "I loved Stanley. It was very tough to lose him. And then divorce. All the things you think you're never going to have to do. But, hey- other people are battling cancer, so in terms of the big picture, I go, Pull yourself together, Nicole." Kidman, whose mother is a breast cancer survivor, adds, "I'd love to raise a lot of money for ovarian cancer research. I know two women who had it- it's such an insidious cancer. I would love to make a dent there. I'm the UNICEF ambassador in Austrailia, and I'd like to do more work, actually do the fieldwork. Particularly in Asia, like on child prostitution and other slightly more controversial issues." She has also raised funds for "this amateur theater place in Sydney where I went [as a teen]. I had my first kiss onstage there, in a play called Spring Awakening, at age 14. It was a really, really great kiss, and I would look forward to it every night. I tell you, I learned that I loved to kiss."

8. SHE WANTS TO GO, WELL, EVERYWHERE...
"I'd love to take my kids hiking in Bhutan. That's a challenge I'd like. Well, that and just to get them to 21, happy, healthy and well adjusted. Then I can go to my grave happy. Or maybe then I can go to Morocco. I don't want to end my life not having lived in Morocco. I love the smells, the souks, the camels, the dryness, the heat. I've been there three times, and I step off the plane and something happens to me. It's incredibly erotic." Another exotic ambition is "to perform Chekhov, in Russian, in Russia. That would be wonderful," she says, swooning slightly. (She studied the language to play a Russian mail-order bride in her upcoming film Birthday Girl.) "The plays are still exquisite in English, but there is something about the Russian language- you feel the pathos of the characters through just the sounds."

9. ...EVEN TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CAMERA.
"I'm trying to adapt Susanna Moore's novel In the Cut. My friend Jane Campion [who directed Kidman in The Portrait of a Lady] and I have been working on it for five years. With writing you're so revealed. I kept a journal from age 11 to 18. I wasn't a very happy teenager. It was a great way to purge myself. I don't keep one now. Too dangerous. I don't know if I want to put all these thoughts down on paper." She would also "love to make a documentary in my home country. Jane would produce, and I would direct. I'm not interested in fiction directing, but documentary- the human spirit."

10. SHE STILL BELIEVES IN LOVE.
"With everything that has happened in my life, I'm so glad I made a love story. Moulin Rouge is a classic love story that somehow feeds your own belief in love as well, and in love that maybe doesn't last but that feeds you and should never be forgotten. I play a woman who learns about falling in love after she's been hurt. She abandons herself to love. She's fearless," Kidman says, admiringly. Yet she concedes, "Ohhhh, that's a long way off for me. A long way off."

Interview with InStyle magazine.