Nicole Kidman

If she lands this Oscar, it would be the first for an Aussie actress. Nicole Kidman was nominated last year as well for her stupendous performance in Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge.

Nicole Kidman was born in Hawaii but grew up in Australia, where she got her acting start. She married screen heartthrob Tom Cruise in 1990, after they met while filming the race-car soap opera Days of Thunder.

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Among her most famous films are To Die For (1995, based on the Pamela Smart case) and Stanley Kubrick’s last film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), in which she starred with Cruise. After a decade of marriage, Cruise and Kidman divorced. Her career didn't slow down despite the fact that she took time to recuperate from the split.

In 2001 she appeared in Birthday Girl, The Others and Moulin Rouge and in 2002 she received rave reviews for her performance as Virginia Woolf in The Hours, the film she has been nominated for this year.