Nicole Kidman covers the August issue of VOGUE. She’s covered a LOT of VOGUE. Anna Wintour loves her. We’ll get to the photo in a minute, let’s start with the article. Part of the interview takes place on a golf course. Nicole’s just getting into it. We also learn that she has her own rose garden, loves to garden in general, and makes jams and chutneys to give away to her friends. I don’t know if I would play golf with Nicole. I feel like she’d be a golf cart person and I like to walk the course when I play. I would however love to try a Nicole Kidman spread. I want to know if she labels her own mason jars. As we’ve seen, they’re all labelling their own mason jars now. They’re all selling LifeStyle. You think she could be next?

Her 73 Questions interview happens on her farm. She’s giving away eggs. She’s pointing out her black angus. She has a cottage and a picnic basket and walks around in an exquisite white dress that should never be dirtied like she’s all about milking cows and pulling weeds. (The video is below. But it’s 8 minutes long. TOO LONG.)

All this in service of the upcoming The Queen Of The Desert. As the writer points out, Nicole is kicking off a big year. In addition to Queen, she’ll be in Secret In Their Eyes with Julia Roberts and Chiwetel Ejiofor and The Family Fang, based on Kevin Wilson’s book, with Jason Bateman. She’ll also be doing a play in London, her first time back on stage since The Blue Room. No complaints here. I love Nicole Kidman, the Actor. One of the finest actors. It’s just…her acting has been overshadowed for a while by her face. It’s a distraction. It’s been a distraction in several of her last films. So much of a distraction that Entertainment Weekly, not a tabloid, not even close, even published an article about it called “The return of Nicole Kidman’s face”. I wonder if it was premature because it continues to be a distraction to me in the trailer for The Queen Of The Desert. The film is supposed to be gorgeous. The setting is gorgeous, naturally. But every time she comes up, it’s like the lighting gets extra, not unlike the way it was in that Grace Of Monaco movie. THAT is a distraction.

The rest of the interview is about Nicole’s adventurous artistic spirit – her unusual, unexpected choices – and how those risks pay off and how she’s paid for them in return. There’s also a lot of talk of the peace she’s found with Keith Urban, their quiet life in Nashville, the joy they share over their children. The best part of the article, to me at least, is when Julia Roberts talks, ostensibly about Nicole but, really, about herself:

“We share a similar sense of ourselves,” Roberts says. “I have such a happy, excited feeling about my children, and I love to share stories, which can no doubt be nauseating at times, right? But Nicole is the same. We could just chatter away endlessly.”

They use one Julia quote. And it happens to be a quote where she spends almost the entire time talking about what makes Julia happy and excited, and how Julia loves sharing stories, and, oh yeah, Nicole does that too.

As for the cover…

I call that post-dental face. You know after you go to the dentist everything is numb? That’s the expression Nicole’s wearing there. Like she might have gauze tucked into her gums. An odd choice for the front page. And her back looks odd too. Doesn’t her back look really, really odd?

Click here to read the full article and see more photos.