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If Walking Tall and The Punisher and all the other vengeance movies this year have been Hollywood's response to 9/11, then the new remake of The Stepford Wives just might be the gay mafia's response to the current debate about "protecting traditional marriage." Out mogul Scott Rudin teamed his In & Out writer Paul Rudnick with Nicole Kidman, the Oscar-winning star of Rudin's The Hours, in this reinterpretation of Ira Levin's spooky novel (originally adapted to film in 1975) about a Connecticut suburb whose veneer of "perfect" wives hides a disturbing secret. Rudnick, who previously blended laughs with chills in the Addams Family films, saw this as a remake ripe for someone with his wicked gifts. "I looked at a Pauline Kael review of the original film," he says, "and she said she felt that the comedy was so inherent in this material that she wondered why the earlier film hadn't brought that out to a greater degree. So I felt emboldened." And on the heels of such serious epics as The Hours, Dogville, and Cold Mountain, this sci-fi satire gave Kidman an all-too-rare chance to show the comic chops that won her such acclaim in Gus Van Sant's To Die For. Kidman and Rudnick's mutual admiration was evident in a phone interview with The Advocate. Was this remake an idea you came up with, or was it pitched to you? Rudnick: No, the producer, Scott Rudin, whom I'd worked with on many projects before, came to me because the rights to the underlying material--not just the original film but the original novel, which was written by Ira Levin--became available. So I think there were several parties that were interested in the rights. Scott made a bid and then called me up. I have a very common knee-jerk reaction when I hear the title Stepford Wives. There are so many people who may not even have seen the original film or read the book, but they're so familiar with the title. Oh, yeah, it's definitely entered the lexicon. Rudnick: It has, and I was always curious as to what image that actually entails, especially for people who didn't know the original story. And it fascinated me in quite the same way--I knew I'd seen the movie a long time ago, but I didn't remember the plot exactly. But I immediately said, "Yes--oh, my God, that sounds so intriguing!" So that was how things began. Well, one thing I'm curious about and would love to hear your thoughts on: People throw the word camp around sort of recklessly, and I'm of the school that thinks it's only campy if it's funny in a way that it's not intended to be. Rudnick: Right. And my feeling with the original Stepford Wives is, they knew exactly what they were doing. It may be kind of ridiculous and overstated in a certain way, but it's all intentional and it's not necessarily campy the way Valley of the Dolls is. Rudnick: Yeah, I'm glad you said that, because I find that people could so misunderstand and misuse the word camp out of just sheer ignorance and sometimes out of malice. That sometimes camp can mean just anything that might make a heterosexual man uncomfortable. No, it's such a flexible term. Susan Sontag's piece on camp, actually, I thought was brilliant, because it explored a lot of the facets of the term. Especially since camp has kind of entered the water supply--there's heterosexual camp and old-school camp and high- and low-camp--it's way too easy to either dismiss or marginalize a certain kind of comedy or a certain kind of performance as merely camp. And I think that's unfortunate, 'cause I think that both the novel and the first Stepford Wives film are also extremely witty. They're very sly and they're both serious suspense pieces, but they are onto themselves and they realize that there's something innately comic about the notion of men turning their wives into robots. Maybe because almost anyone can understand the impulse. A lot of writers talk about being pariahs on the set once the movie gets started. Did you get to be around? Did you get to shape the material after casting happened, to make it more appropriate for whomever's doing it? Rudnick: Absolutely, especially on this film. I've worked with both Scott and Frank Oz, the film's director, before on In & Out. They're both wonderfully generous and patient men. So they actually welcomed and even demanded my presence, because--especially, I think--when you're working with comedy and with a cast of this caliber, when things are going well, you want to give people even more to do, and if things are misfiring, it's great to have a writer on hand going, "OK, let's fix this--let's fix it right now." So I was very glad to be on the set, and I think I never imagined that every syllable or even every paragraph of mine is anything approaching gold, so I'm very happy to tailor material to performers, especially when they're this kind of crowd. Kidman: I do have to say, we had Paul on the set every day, and that's a blessing. It never happens, and that shows his commitment to something. And also to have your talent, it was nice just to say, "Paul! Can you come up with a line!" [Laughs] And "What do you think? Will you say it for me?" I'd get Paul to sometimes say the stuff for me, right? I'd be like, "Show me how you'd play this!" But it's very, very helpful to have a writer express how they heard it. And I had no problem being given a line-read. Rudnick: Oh, well, it was beyond an honor to work with Nicole and the rest of that cast, because that's quite an overwhelming group. And you just keep pinching yourself. So, Paul, any thoughts of directing at some point?Rudnick: Never! Kidman: Oh, you should! You really should! Rudnick: Oh, no, that's an impossible task, and I'm so impressed with the 2-1/2 people who can do it on the planet! [Laughs] I'm just in awe. Kidman: No, you'd be very, very good. And I say that because he did. He's very good at sensing what works and what isn't going to work. Rudnick: As always, that is extremely kind of you. I mean, Nicole, for someone of her caliber and her stature in the world to be that generous and that constantly patient and that open was almost unheard of. And that's sucking up. [Kidman laughs] But that's impressive, because I think there are people far less famous and far less gifted who don't ever listen to anyone. That's an additional pleasure. And I think, actually, that was true of almost all of our cast, that they were people who were...it's an amazing groups of names, but people were working together. Especially with comedy, you need that level of collaboration. Kidman: But collaboration is what makes you...I mean, if you're going to be good, you're going to be good because there's this group of you working together. That's why--particularly as an actor--it's never about your performance. It's about everybody else contributing to a performance. And it's so important that at any of those awards or any of those things when you win an award, you say, "This isn't about me, this is about a group of people that came together and helped each other, and this is what came out of it." Rudnick: It's also, I think, one of the pleasures that movies have--oddly, both Stepford and Dogville--is when you have casts like that and they create a town. It's the idea that you could get in your car and go somewhere that has Glenn Close and Nicole Kidman and Chris Walken living in it. It's amazing, if you think, Oh, yeah, that's the planet I want to live on. And the same with Dogville, where you have Lauren Bacall and Patty Clarkson and Nicole, and you think, How wonderful that someone can create these communities. And I think that's something that you only get in the movies. Kidman: They're two different towns. Rudnick: So which was scarier, Dogville or Connecticut? Kidman: [Laughs] I think Von Trier was far scarier. Which I'm sorry to say! At the same time, with Lars, he was scary but he was also rewarding. I suppose it's the way you live your life. There's different ways to live it, and I tend to say, "I want to turn myself into it. I still want to make really crazy, spontaneous choices and see where they come out." And I suppose part of this thing is that when you reach a certain stage of success, it's very hard to keep doing that, because people don't want you to--there's a lot more at stake. But at the same time, I think it's when you've got to do it. What do you think it says about feminism that 30 years later, you can still tell this story and it still rings the same chimes with people?Rudnick: Well, it was interesting, because in the first film, the most threatening thing that any female character did --the heroine, played by Katharine Ross--was pursue photography as a hobby. That's right! What cheek! Rudnick: It was considered so frightening that they had to turn her into a robot! And I think women have made certain strides since then, so now the women in our film are CEOs--Nicole plays the president of a network--so there's the more current phenomenon of genuinely powerful women whom men find extremely threatening. And also, there's something else that's been written about quite a bit lately: That sense of women who've experienced power, who really have shattered glass ceilings and become the heads of corporations, who then step away and say, "No, I want to raise a family. I want to make a different choice now that choice is possible." And some of those women have been criticized; some of those women have been told off as women with a choice available only to the very wealthy. But it's a lot of interesting contemporary questions about women's lives. In a way, it's about what gay people would be going through about "OK--who do you want to emulate? Do women want to become precisely what powerful men have been? Is that so desirable? Is that a necessary step for feminism?" I guess I always think that in order to have true equality, you have to have an equal number of gay or female monsters.

Equal access to assholedom! Rudnick: Otherwise, it doesn't really count--I don't want to play nice. But that's the modern Stepford. Women are a lot more powerful, so the men have a lot more to worry about. You touched on the fact that there's inherent comedy in the material and there's a sort of a knowing satire in the Ira Levin novel and the first film. You are principally known as a funny guy--how did you approach the balance of not going too far into the jokes but also not too far into suspense?Rudnick: Well, it's a process, and something that I worked on very closely with Frank Oz, the director, and with Scott Rudin. In terms of the special effects, since computer animation has progressed quite a bit since the earlier film, we tried to imagine what the audience might expect in terms of a very up-to-date kind of sci-fi comedy. So it's funny--I tend to look for humor whenever possible, and especially in material that's as outrageous as this. But you still want it to be grounded--I always feel things are funnier when the stakes are both entirely human and as high as possible. And because this is a film about--however comic--a life-or-death situation, I hope that it's got a kind of mixed tone, that sense of some genuine suspense and genuine darkness mixed in with some fairly extreme and fairly sophisticated comedy. Yeah, it's a little bit of a challenge, though, because I've never worked on something that involved this level of special effects and robotics and technology. But I also wanted to reflect the fact that we live in an increasingly techno-savvy age with PCs and with safe houses. I did some research there; there are now homes with touch pads on the walls that don't merely monitor the security system and the temperature and the fireplace and the sound system, but also things like the toilets. You can buy a feature that will test the water in your toilet to reflect your own levels of various blood contents. Oh, my! Rudnick: So it can get a little scary. I think there's a line in the film where Nicole's character says, "I don't want to live in a house that's smarter than I am." And I understand that fear. That's certainly part of our Stepford. Were you disappointed that Marci X didn't get more attention from Paramount? They seemed to slide it into a late-summer slot and not really know what to do with it. Rudnick: No, because Marci X, I must say, was probably the most hideous and troubling experience of my career! [Laughs] Ooh, really? Rudnick: It was. It was sad. It was a film that was made in the most unfortunate manner possible, and which I ultimately tried quite strongly to have my name taken off of, because the final product bears absolutely no relationship to my original script. So it was a very sad situation for me and for Scott as well, because he also worked on that film. It was a movie that was very much rushed into production right before there was about to be an enormous writers' strike--or not--occurring. So it was slammed together and ultimately took a fairly unwatchable form. It was a terribly sad experience for me and, I think, for many of the other people involved. Will you have your eventual Hollywood bad-story script out of it? Ten years later, maybe, your S.O.B.--your autobiographical "Oh, my God, I can't believe this happened" piece? Rudnick: It's funny--I hope that's true, but I should say that whenever I've had any sort of catastrophic experience in show business, people often walk up to me and go, "Oh, Paul, you're so lucky--this is great material!" And I always think, Is this how people greeted the survivors coming off the lifeboats on the Titanic? [Laughs] "Good for you, you'll find a publisher!" There was a great New Yorker cartoon recently--it was a woman writing her parents and it said, "Dear Mom and Dad, thanks for the great childhood. You ruined any chance I had of becoming a serious writer." Rudnick: Oh, exactly! And so I'm always grateful for any horror that comes my way. "Adversity is character-building." Rudnick: Oh, right! [Regarding Kidman's older child turning 12] You'll be embarrassing them in public in no time.Kidman: I already have. I'm a constant embarrassment. "Mo-o-om!" Kidman: Yeah, unfortunately. [Laughs] I think that started at about 9. And they've denied me. At school they've denied me. They've denied me in public. They've used different last names so that they can hide when they're at camp and everything. Down at Chelsea Piers they purposefully won't use their last name, because they just want to be anonymous. And Conor hates it when I pick him up from the gym class because he gets teased. [Laughs] You're in the same boat with every other parent of a child. Kidman: Oh, I remember with my mother, I'd be just appalled--more appalled with my father picking me up from school, because everyone else had their mums picking them up, and I had my dad standing there. And half the time he'd forget to pick me up. (Below, the interview as it appeared in the magazine)Given the look of the film, I have to ask you both: Did you play with Barbies growing up? Kidman: [Laughs] Paul? You want to go first? Rudnick: We did have this discussion, I think, on the set one day that there is something very Barbie-like about the Stepford Wives. I always think it's because they're a combination of something that's very alluring and very scary at the same time. Kidman: That's a good way to put it, because I was forbidden to have a Barbie as a child. Really? Kidman: I had a strong feminist mother, and so she said that to have that as an ideal given to a young girl was wrong--you know, the whole political reason. So I wasn't allowed to have a Barbie. Rudnick: But did you have a Barbie anyway? Kidman: I loved Barbie! I didn't care! I went to the supermarket once and I took one, and she made me take it back. When she realized I'd resorted to stealing a Barbie doll, then she actually bought me one, because she said, "OK, a political view shouldn't be imprinted on her just yet." In a time when gays and lesbians are fighting for the right to get their own taste of whatever you think of as traditional marriage, this movie draws on the notion that if you're really talking tradition, you're talking about wives as property. Rudnick: Yeah, it's different, isn't it, to have a frighteningly traditional community with a real twist? I think there is a certain yearning for what's considered the ideal small town, and what adds the darkness is that the women in that ideal small town are usually baking something at all times. It's interesting--I remember from the early days of planning on Stepford Wives we were discussing what the wives themselves would wear, what the look and the aura would be. We had this genius costume designer, Ann Roth, and there was this sense that if you pushed it too far in the male-fantasy direction, they'd become hookers, they'd become showgirls. There was something more Connecticut and suburban that we were after. Kidman: Also, they almost become more powerful. Because I originally saw it as the ideal sort of sex bomb, the Pamela Anderson-type look. And in a weird way, that is almost more powerful than wearing an apron. Rudnick: Exactly, yes, we were going for something more submissive and genteel. Kidman: Right. Yes. Sort of like "burkas by Laura Ashley"?Kidman: That doesn't threaten at all. Rudnick: Right. But still sexual in a certain sense: the nice girl in the apron who's still at the beck and call of her lord and master. Just the very idea of creating the perfect woman, there's a sort of costume and theater to that. But you start to deal with those archetypes and it's kind of fascinating because some of them are real throwbacks--that sense of "OK, any really contemporary woman becomes very threatening." You suddenly want Donna Reed in an apron again. Kidman: [Chuckles] You wrote that wonderful speech that I give to Matthew [Broderick] at the end. Well, we can't talk about it, can we, but where I asked Matthew "Do you really want this?" and Matthew answered--as Matthew--"Yes!" [All laugh] Rudnick: Oh, that's the thing. Everybody's capable of wanting that degree of control over someone else, especially over the person that they're married to, that sense of "I love them and I want them to behave the way I want them to." That's a common urge, and it's very dangerous. One of my first inspirations was the idea of sitting on the couch next to your spouse, male or female or whomever, and they're whining or nagging or doing whatever most irritates you, and you've got the remote in your hand--that moment you think, What if it was truly a universal remote? What if I aim to my right and press the mute? When religious conservatives in this country talk about how things used to be so much better, you want to remind them, "Yeah, as long as you were a rich white Christian man, because you weren't hearing about everybody else's problems. They were shoved off into a corner somewhere." What comes with people being equal is, you don't get to hide everything in the kitchen anymore. Kidman: Yeah, but there's certainly now another set of problems. But I think that's part of humanity, isn't it? That's part of saying, "OK, we'll let you be equal." I would much prefer everything to be out and everybody dealing with it rather than us all pretending it's not there. Rudnick: Right. And the suburbs are often the capital of hiding things--whether it's the traditional suburb filled with alcoholism and adultery, or Stepford's, which has even greater technological secrets. Kidman: But at the same time I'm a huge believer in being able to say, "No, this is my privacy," and having that respected. The problem now, a lot of times, is that there isn't a lot of respect for someone just saying, "You want to know something? That's none of your business." And there's also a breakdown in basic manners. [Laughs] Maybe that's me as a mother talking! I suppose it's basically about respecting everybody as an individual, and if you can start with that, then that's what makes the world go round. It's a far more interesting world that way. Rudnick: And there is a gay couple in Stepford, played deliciously by David Marshall Grant and Roger Bart. I thought that certainly the urge to turn your partner into a robot knows no gender-preference barriers. So I thought that that was another way of making sure that it was a very up-to-the-minute Stepford. Because there is this urge toward the suburbs on the part of so many gay people. It's kind of double-edged for me--I grew up in the suburbs, and I think on one hand, it's everyone's basic civil right to be married, have kids, move to the suburbs, and be as miserable as any heterosexual. [Laughs] But I understand both sides. The urge for a kind of pastoral happiness--the urge for a family and for the comfort and security and pleasure that a suburb can provide--it's completely understandable. On the other hand, I think there is a real concern about assimilation: "Does equality have to equal conformity and imitation?" It's a question that every individual resolves for him- or herself. Kidman: I think change is good. That's where I stand on [gay marriage]. But I'm not well-versed enough in it. I haven't been following it closely enough to speak with a lot of influence, to be honest.

Nicole, you were so amazing in To Die For. I think a lot of people are wondering why it's taken you this long to do another comedy. Kidman: [Giggles] Because I didn't have Paul Rudnick write one for me! Rudnick: Aw! That's very kind! Kidman: I just haven't had the opportunity. I think also, where I went as a person, I went into a place that was very complicated and dark, and the way that came out was through my work. And so my choices were...there wasn't a great deal of humor in that. I was far more interested in Virginia Woolf and Dogville. There were things that I was interested in--damaged women, damaged people--that I was exploring. And then Scott Rudin said to me, "You've got to go to summer camp, Nicole." [All laugh] Rudnick: It turned into fall and winter camp as well! Kidman: But I thought, That is a very good idea! I've always wanted to go to summer camp, especially with Bette Midler! [Laughs] I tend to take Scott's advice. There are a few people in this world that you go, "This is a very smart person who you have an enormous amount of respect for," and Scott Rudin is one of them. Rudnick: Oh, exactly! Scott's pretty extraordinary. I just find that I can trust him, which is certainly an absolute contradiction in terms for anyone working in Hollywood. [Laughs] He's a very passionate guy. Is it a culture shock for you, Nicole, to go from a movie like this, where it's dripping with art direction and general lushness, to Sweden and making Dogville on a stage with chalk marks?Kidman: Yeah. It's erratic and crazy. It's a crazy life. Being an actor is a ridiculous profession. But at the same time, I'm so blessed to have it as my self-expression. You get to go from no set and Scandinavian angst into a group of people who are saying, "Let's laugh at ourselves--let's also try to say something, but let's have fun doing it." Well, your career kind of follows that Catherine Deneuve model, where you do the big-budget mainstream film and then a Lars von Trier movie. I think that's what makes your work really exciting, that you can do Moulin Rouge and The Others in the course of a year. Kidman: And that was luck. As much as it looks like some kind of great career plan, it was luck. It was Baz Luhrmann, whom I'd known for years--he's one of my closest friends--going, "Ah, finally, I'm going to make a musical. Will you be in it?" And then I was just reading the script of The Others and going, "God--this guy's interesting! Yeah, yeah, I'll go to Madrid!" There was no great plan behind it; it just happened to fall into my lap at that stage, and I responded to it. Rudnick: Was The Others shot in Madrid? Kidman: Yeah. Rudnick: 'Cause I think that is such a sensational movie, and it feels so English, like it was shot on the moors. Kidman: Yeah, he wanted to use his own crew. He's Spanish and he didn't actually speak fluent English, Alejandro [Amenabar], so he wouldn't leave Madrid. And that was one of those things--he said, "Listen, you've got to come to me." As did Lars. Paul, if you said that, I'd come to you too. [Laughs] But I kind of like venturing into somebody else's territory, you know? Actually, even doing Stepford was like that for me, because I was venturing into new territory in terms of comedy. For both of you, as actress and writer, did you find yourself adapting to working with a cast who have such different styles of performing? Kidman: It was more like this incredibly eclectic trove of treasures. It was just fabulous to watch Chris Walken working with Bette Midler and Glenn Close, and then seeing Matthew Broderick just come in and make a scene work. That was how it came about that I would do [the new film musical of] The Producers, actually, after working with Matthew. Because Matthew and Roger Bart said to me, "Would you do The Producers? Mel [Brooks] wants to call you." And I said, "Yes, get him to call me, of course I'll do it!" I suppose that's how I make my decisions, based on the people. I loved Matthew and Roger. Rudnick: Oh, there were absolutely changes made, both in terms of story line and in giving the performers more material. Once we cast Jon Lovitz as Bette Midler's husband, that seemed like a golden opportunity. They were so funny together as a couple, we immediately thought, Oh, yes, let's give them more to do. Given this film's story--being a working mother yourself and having been at one point a working wife--have you ever felt that pressure to back-burner your own career to deal more with your family? Have you found the right balance to keep yourself and everybody else happy? Kidman: I think I have no balance whatsoever. [Laughs] Unfortunately, balance is not my strong point. And so I think that's where I make my mistakes, in a way. At the same time, I'm still trying to work it out. I'm at a point where I'm going, OK, well, I know I only have a couple of years before I'm going to be out of work and I'm going to stop. I've expressed that time and time again. That's a very, very definite notion for me, that I'm leaving to work on other things I want to do with my life. You know, I spent my 20s as a wife with kids, really--everything surrounded them, and creating a home was more important to me than my work. And that was fine, actually. That was OK. When that fell apart, then I went, Oh, my God, OK--well, I'll work, that's what I'll do! And by that stage my kids were much older. I mean, I've got a girl who's just about to turn 12. Nicole, where do you think of yourself in the gay lexicon? Do you feel like you've got a strong gay male following? Kidman: Oh, I would hope so! It would mean a lot to me. I suppose I've always been attracted to the theater since I was a kid, so that's an important thing to me. It just is. [Laughs] I hold it in high regard--I really do. And I'm not being facetious. It's interesting, because there's an enormous loyalty amongst a gay following. All the way from To Die For on through, I've had this kind of thing. It's nice to know. I certainly feel the support and offer it back. Have you seen a drag queen do your character from Moulin Rouge, by chance? Kidman: I have! [Laughs] I'm Australian! They do it at the gay Mardi Gras! I've got to go and perform at the gay Mardi Gras in Australia. That's something I know I have to do. Oh, please, yes. Kidman: At midnight, you do the performance. I meant to do it during Moulin Rouge, but I wasn't really that well-known then. And now I would love to go back. Kylie Minogue goes back and does it. I would love to do that. Kylie knows where her bread is buttered with the gays.Kidman: Yeah! Well, and also just because Baz and I, that feeds a lot of Baz's work. The gay Mardi Gras in Australia is a huge, huge event. I say to everybody, "Go, because it's worth seeing and it's just the best time. It's the best time of your life." It really is. And I've been going since...gosh, I'm not even allowed to say. Since it was illegal. [Laughs] But really, it's 48 hours of pure pleasure, put it that way. Rudnick: It is. I went to the gay Mardi Gras there, and it was amazing because there were so many different enormous halls. There were so many simultaneous events that it was really like eight Mardi Gras. Kidman: And there's a massive embracing by the city. It's almost like the next day is a holiday. That's Sydney for you. Rudnick: I was thinking about this, because I think Nicole only has to work on one thing if she's going to become a complete gay icon. That's because she's so extraordinarily talented and so disciplined and so generous... Kidman: Not really. Rudnick: Oh, my God, yes! The only thing that's lacking is, you need a drug or alcohol problem! [All laugh] Kidman: I don't think I'm ever going to have that, somehow. Rudnick: Oh, well. Kidman: I've managed to avoid it till now, and I'm 36 years old. Well, I hope that people like Stepford. We certainly made it with a lot of fun and a lot of joy involved. Rudnick: A lot of very high heels. Kidman: Yeah, a lot of very high heels, a lot of blond hair. [Laughs] And some push-up bras! Rudnick: Oh, my God! That's what I was always so amazed at with Nicole and with all the other wives--what they endured! That it was without complaint. That side of it was so impressive, the amount of time that you could spend in those heels and that wig. Kidman: But it's a lot of fun. You sit down in the chair and two hours later you feel, "Whoa! I am Barbie!" Rudnick: There is one sort of amazingly iconic moment, inspired by a moment in the earlier film, that Nicole rules--when she appears as a complete Stepford goddess in a supermarket. [Kidman laughs] That's breathtaking. Kidman: Who knows, who knows. It was certainly fun to push that trolley. [Laughs] Rudnick: With that much detergent in it. So, Nicole, according to Time magazine, you're one of the 100 most influential people on the planet. What would you like to do with that? Kidman: Ay-yi-yi! [Laughs] No, to answer it seriously, with any sort of influence, I suppose I'd just say to people to please be unjudgmental and full of kindness, and let's try to use words and not guns. Amen. Rudnick: Now I think you should be number 1 on that list. Kidman: [Laughs] That's what I would say. But I don't really...I mean, who's going to listen to me?