Nicole Kidman name "Hōkūlani". The inspiration for the name came from a baby elephant born around the same time at the Honolulu Zoo, but the name is also a commonly used Hawaiian name for girls, Hokulani meaning "Heavenly Star". At the time of Kidman's birth, her father was a graduate student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He became a visiting fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health of the United States. Opposed to the war in Vietnam, Kidman's parents participated in anti-war protests while living in Washington, D.C. The family returned to Australia when Kidman was four and her
Nicole Kidman beauty with, it seems, a sense of humor". The following year, she and Cruise re-teamed for Ron Howard's Irish epic "Far and Away" (1992), which was a modest critical and commercial success. In 1993, she starred in the thriller "Malice" opposite Alec Baldwin and the drama "My Life" opposite Michael Keaton. In 1995, Kidman appeared in her highest-grossing live-action film (as of 2018), playing Dr. Chase Meridian, the damsel in distress, in the superhero film "Batman Forever", opposite Val Kilmer as the film's title character. The same year Kidman starred in Gus Van Sant's critically acclaimed dark comedy "To Die