Nicole, Sean, Sydney and Kofi?

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KIDMAN: I'm actually used to working this way. On Moulin Rouge! we didn't have a script. We had a picture book. That's what Baz [Luhrmann] presents to you, and then he writes and rewrites, and every weekend is choreographing something. Birth was like that too. I'd get the pages in the morning and shoot in the afternoon.

WHEN YOU'RE THROWN TOGETHER WITH ANOTHER ACTOR, IS IT POSSIBLE TO KNOW BEFOREHAND IF YOU'LL HAVE CHEMISTRY?

PENN: This is a myth of people who write about film--who has chemistry together, who doesn't. It's just a function of timing and circumstance, nothing more.

KIDMAN: I knew that Sean was fascinating, and that's an important thing with me. If I'm bored with the person I'm working with, that will probably come across. I need to be fascinated.

PENN: I want examples of the nonfascinating ones.

KIDMAN: No, no, no.

IS IT EASIER OR HARDER TO BE FASCINATED WHEN YOU'RE ACTING OPPOSITE YOUR SPOUSE?

KIDMAN: That could get me into some dangerous territory. When you're working with your spouse, with your husband, you bring so much baggage to a film. It can work, but not if the characters are meant to be yearning for each other and never get together. Then you're up against something insurmountable.

WHEN DID YOU TWO FIRST MEET?

PENN: I sent you that note first 'cause I thought you were so great in that movie Buck Henry wrote [To Die For].

KIDMAN: That's right. You sent me a telegram, actually. But we met at a party. Whose party was it?

PENN: It was Princess Leia's [Carrie Fisher's] party, wasn't it?

KIDMAN: After To Die For, he sent me a lovely telegram, and to get that kind of encouragement early on in your career gives you much more confidence to do things that are unusual or a little bold or offbeat. The thing about Sean is that he has an incredibly generous spirit in terms of other people's work, particularly actors.

YOU DEFENDED JUDE LAW'S HONOR WHEN CHRIS ROCK MADE FUN OF HIM AT THE OSCARS ...

KIDMAN: Another perfect example.

DOES IT BOTHER YOU THAT YOU OFTEN COME ACROSS AS HUMORLESS IN PUBLIC?

PENN: No, I tell you what bothers me. I saw that part on television from my hotel room before I got there, and the problem was that this f__ing punk town that we work in, nobody in that f__ing place booed the dumb joke. Chris Rock's really funny and talented, and in a three-hour set you're allowed to make bad jokes, but the audience should respond. Instead, it's just a bunch of schadenfreude-ists sitting there wanting Jude's parts and looks.

BUT YOU DIDN'T EXACTLY RESPOND WITH HUMOR.

PENN: I don't think you lack a sense of humor when you don't laugh at something that's not funny. The whole premise of the thing, it seems to me--and I'm gonna analyze it for a second because I'm having fun--is almost like, What's so funny about peace, love and understanding? What's so funny about pursuing excellence? Why is it that on the show that aspires to celebrate excellence, a fantastic actor has to be used as a punch line? Everybody was uncomfortable with the thing, and [exhales in mock seriousness] I guess it's my position, when I do come down here [to Los Angeles], to be completely devoid of humor. [All laugh] God knows, somebody's got to do it. But bottom line: I didn't think it was funny.

KIDMAN: Neither did I. I laughed at other things Chris Rock said. Just not that.