Nicole Kidman: Portrait of a Lady

While not an obvious candidate for the role of Woolf -- thanks to makeup artists, test audiences didn't even recognize the ravishing redhead as the dowdy Englishwoman -- Kidman immersed herself in the life and work of the literary and feminist icon, learning to write with her right hand (she's a lefty) and rolling her own cigarettes.

"I didn't want to do it," Kidman admits of the film, which began production soon after her marriage ended. "I tried to pull out. I actually called my agent and said, 'I don't want to do this. This isn't the right thing for me. It's too much at this stage, and I just need to hibernate.' And my friends all said, 'Get on the plane and do it. Go get lost in it.'"

Ultimately, however, Kidman was grateful for the role and the vision of director Stephen Daldry. "I thought, wow, I get this opportunity to really go and do something I've never done before and exist within a character in a completely different way," says the actress. "And it was in this time of my life when I was just raw enough to do it. And everything kind of came together ... To share this film with these two women -- that doesn't happen often. And I felt very, very privileged to be able to say, I made a film with Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore."