At Home Abroad

Actress Nicole Kidman was born in America, but listening to her order at a Beverly Hills restaurant, you might not believe it. Her “A’s” give her away; artichoke marinade, pasta salad, lemon tart . . . .

There are some things you can’t hide, mate.

Kidman, 23, is Australian. She was born in Hawaii to Australian parents and was 5 before her family moved back to Sydney.

Now Kidman’s back on her “somewhat” native soil to promote her first U.S.-released film, “Dead Calm,” which opened Friday.

She plays Rae Ingram, a young woman with an older husband (Sam Neill), who is an officer in the Royal Australian Navy. Before the finish of the opening credits, Rae loses her toddler in a car accident. To recover from their loss, the Ingrams set out on a Pacific crossing in their yacht.

More peril awaits Rae and John at sea. Rae is forced to put her grief aside and deal with the menace on deck--an ocean hitchhiker named Warriner (Billy Zane).

“The film is about Rae’s journey,” says Kidman, “from childhood to adulthood. She has to find her own inner resources to overcome another person--and not just physically, but mentally too.”

The terror-suspense film was shot almost entirely at sea, off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Kidman did all her own stunts (in some scenes she crashes around more than the surf during a tidal wave) and skippered the yacht, called the Saracen, as well.

Kidman is already known in Australia. Last year, the public voted her best actress for her work in the TV miniseries “Vietnam.” And she recently completed a stint in the Australian production of the play “Steel Magnolias.”

Both her parents are academics, but the 5-foot, 10-inch actress chose to enroll in drama school at the age of 10. The good roles, however, didn’t come automatically to Kidman, who remembers herself as a “skinny, gawky, freckle-faced thing.”

“I wasn’t able to play Mary in the school Christmas play,” she explains, “because I was so tall. I cried my eyes out. Instead, I played a sheep.”

Obviously, things have changed. Now Kidman hopes for more roles in American films. She feels it’s time for America to meet up with an authentic Australian female.

“You’ve had Paul Hogan in ‘Crocodile Dundee’ and Mel Gibson. I think it would be lovely for Americans to see what an Australian woman is like. . . .”