Cannes 2012: Nicole Kidman talks Lee Daniels' THE PAPERBOY

BOUNCING back from a string of disappointing films, Nicole Kidman credits her natural instincts - and a willingness to pile on the kilos - for a return to form in Lee Daniels' THE PAPERBOY, which has wowed critics at the Cannes Film Festival.

The 44-year-old stars alongside John Cusack, Zac Efron and Matthew McConaughey as a trailer-trash bombshell trying to extricate herself from a wildly erratic convicted felon.

She admits to being puzzled by talk of a comeback. In a career of all-time highs – an Oscar win for THE HOURS – and, last year, an almighty low, with TRESPASS going straight to DVD, strategy did not, she insists, play any part in her taking on the offbeat noir melodrama.

"I don't think in terms of my career," she told The Sunday Age, just before the film's world premiere at Cannes. There was no premeditated agenda. ''That's just not my nature in life. Both husbands that I've been married to [Tom Cruise and Keith Urban], I married within three, four months. That's just who I am. I choose roles that way, too."

Kidman's remarkable performance includes a scene in which the bikini-clad actress urinates on Efron, to ease the pain of jellyfish stings. She also re-imagines the notorious scene from Basic Instinct in which Sharon Stone famously flashed to camera.

Critics, often divided over the merits of a film at Cannes, have been unanimous in their praise of Kidman's risque turn. Todd McCarthy, of the Hollywood Reporter, saluted the star for "tramping it up", while Peter Bradshaw, of The Guardian, hailed Kidman as "terrifically good … funny, sexy, poignantly vulnerable".

Kidman, who capitulated to her director's demands to add "more booty" to her slender frame, says: "I don't overthink things, I live and die on that. It's spontaneous. Lee knows these people, he toughened me up, he put me on the street. I met with women that have relationships with men in prison. They told me their stories, and I didn't judge.''

Daniels, a gay African-American who was nominated for a best director Academy Award for his confronting 2009 film PRECIOUS, spent 13 years bringing Peter Dexter's swamp thriller to the big screen. He admits he pushed Kidman hard to get what he wanted.

He was surprised by her work ethic, unlike that of many A-listers. Kidman refused to watch any playbacks or daily rushes on set, for fear of distraction. She remained, he says, in character throughout.

"It was like working with Bette Davis," Daniels says. "There were moments when I had to pinch myself. I couldn't believe she executed my exact direction, then put some icing on the cake. It was like a Ferrari.''

THE PAPERBOY, which is due in Australia later this year, is running in the festival's official competition, along with 21 other new films, for the top prize, the Palme d'Or, with the winner to be announced today.

ED GIBBS

First published in The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age.

Postscript: Michael Haneke’s AMOUR (LOVE) won the 2012 Palme d’Or, Sunday night. For details of all prize winners, visit festival-cannes.fr