Dodgy New York cafe helps director woo Nicole Kidman

Hollywood pitch meetings, involving director and potential star, usually take place in the finest restaurants. It's a time to impress.

The director is keen to woo the star.

The star, if interested in the project, is prepared to pull off an Oscar-worthy performance over salad and mineral water to win the director over.

When Noah Baumbach, the 38-year-old Brooklyn-born writer-director, met with Nicole Kidman to discuss his new drama, Margot at the Wedding, the location was not the Waldorf-Astoria or The Mercer Hotel.

"It was a funny little place," chuckled Baumbach during an interview with AAP, ironically, in a penthouse suite in the Waldorf-Astoria.

"They didn't have servers at this place, so we had to go up to the counter to order."

The venue was a dodgy coffee shop in Manhattan's Chelsea district.

"It was funny because I assumed she picked the place and she assumed I picked it," Baumbach, still laughing, said.

"But we found out later an agent's assistant picked it.

"It was not a place where I was thinking, `Now, where should I meet Nicole Kidman?"

The coffee shop, as unfashionable and dour as it was, proved to be the ideal venue.

Scant of customers, they took a table at the rear and were not bothered by autograph hunters. A posse of paparazzi was not waiting outside for them to leave.

"There were so few customers," Baumbach said.

"It actually turned out to be ideal that way because it was quiet and no one was gawking."

Baumbach did not have much to offer Kidman other than a copy of the Margot at the Wedding script.

The script was his follow-up to The Squid and the Whale, another low budget New York-set drama that earned him an original screenplay Oscar nomination in 2005.

Baumbach had circled Kidman as his choice to play Margot, a razor-tongued, meddling New York author in the midst of a mental breakdown.

Baumbach's wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh, was cast to play Margot's younger, unambitious sister set to marry an unemployed artist, played by Jack Black.

The total budget for the film was around $US10 million ($NZ12.8 million), about half the $US17 million Kidman was paid for starring in last year's sci-fi box office disaster, The Invasion.

Baumbach knew walking into the coffee shop Kidman would make a fraction of her usual fee if she accepted the role.

Time was also a problem.

Kidman had committed to making Baz Luhrmann's epic, Australia and the fantasy film, The Golden Compass, so if she did sign up to his tiny drama, it would have to be squeezed into her schedule.

What Baumbach did have going for him was a resume of interesting, independent films he had written and directed, the most successful The Squid and the Whale.

They chatted for an hour over coffee, Baumbach gave Kidman a copy of the script, and they parted ways.

Baumbach was shocked when he received a call the next day.

"The next morning she said, `If you can fit it into my schedule I'd love to do it,"' Baumbach recalled.

"It meant us shooting the movie sooner than we had planned on, which was great because it created an energy where we felt `OK, let's put this together'."

Kidman has a history of making small budget, passion projects in between the $US200 million-plus Hollywood studio films that pay her $US17 million.

The afternoon after leaving the cafe, she sat down and read the Margot at the Wedding script.

The dysfunctional, often hurtful, relationship between Margot and her sister, Pauline, is what grabbed Kidman.

It was polar opposite to the relationship Kidman shares with her sister, Antonia.

Kidman, 40, said if it was not for Antonia, she probably would not have survived her marriage breakdown with first husband, Tom Cruise. As she prepares to give birth to her first child with new husband, country music star Keith Urban, it is Antonia who has been at her side.

It was Kidman who helped Antonia through her recent marriage break-up with husband, Angus Hawley.

"I would describe our relationship as twin-like," Kidman said.

"So the combativeness of this sibling relationship in Margot at the Wedding is what interested me.

"It's fascinating when you have this expectation because you are family that you should be getting along.

"I think there's a lot of people who say `I don't get along with my family and I should and I'm trying, but just because we have the same blood running through us doesn't mean that we are necessarily the right chemistry together'.

"That's fascinating for me.

"I love being part of storytelling that explores human psychology."

The film takes place on the eve of Pauline's wedding.

Margot arrives with her young son, Claude.

"I think she's having a breakdown," said Kidman, explaining the confrontational behaviour of her character.

"I think she's in crisis and there's ways in which she's coping with that.

"The way she is acting and behaving is very much an indicator of all of the inner turmoil.

"I think what's wonderful about Noah's writing is that he is wickedly funny.

"He's dealing with disturbing parts of family life, and he's able to bring humour.

"I've always been attracted to things like that.

"I made a film called To Die For which was dealing with some pretty dark subject matter.

"I think Noah has similar attributes to what (To Die For screenwriter) Buck Henry has."

The film was shot at a large beach house on New York's Long Island.

Baumbach and the cast rehearsed at the house for two weeks. It was in this period Kidman crawled into the skin of Margot.

A dialogue coach helped with her New York accent and costume designer Ann Roth, who worked with Kidman on Cold Mountain and The Hours, found the physical items that helped Kidman become the complex Margot.

"She is able to find pieces of clothing and helps me with the character's walk," Kidman said.

"She gave me a pair of woolly socks and that cardigan and I was able to slop around in those when we were rehearsing and that somehow triggered the feeling for the whole movie for me.

"Just being able to move around in socks with no shoes in the house gave a very casual feel.

"And the glasses.

"When she showed them to me I grabbed them and said `perfect'."

- AAP