Kidman gets ready for the next Oscars with portrayal of Princess Grace of Monaco

 Nicole Kidman in Grace of Monaco / Pic: Austral Source: The Daily Telegraph

Amy Harris, The Daily Telegraph, reports

As soon as Oscars wrapped up this week, talk quickly turned to next year's gongs and Nicole Kidman's upcoming turn in the Grace Kelly biopic Grace Of Monaco.

Early stills of The Weinstein Company's flick emerged yesterday showing Kidman bearing a remarkable similarity to the late Hollywood beauty.

The 45-year-old portrays the Princess of Monaco in 1962 when she was in her 30s trying to help her adopted country during a time of political turmoil.

The film, which co-stars Tim Roth as Prince Rainier, is set to be released in December - smack bang in the middle of awards season contention. A win for Kidman would bring her Oscar tally to two.

Meanwhile, the sometimes-Sydney based actress gave an interview recently in which she claimed, despite the complaints of some of her peers over the lack of roles for older women in Hollywood, that it is still possible for older actresses to succeed in the film industry, pointing to Emmanuelle Riva, who at 86 received an Oscar nomination this year.

Monaco royals slam Nicole Kidman's Grace Kelly biopic

Monaco's royals say Nicole Kidman's new film about Grace Kelly is full of inaccuracies. Picture: AP Source: AP

The Daily Telegraph reports

Monaco’s royal family have slammed Nicole Kidman's new biopic of Grace Kelly as "inaccurate" and "pure fiction."

Kidman plays the Hollywood star-turned-royalty Grace Kelly in Grace of Monaco, which follows the Hollywood icon as she struggles to come into her own as a princess in 1962 Monaco.

But Monaco’s Prince Albert and his sisters Princess Caroline and Princess Stephanie denounced the new film as "pointlessly glamourised and historically inaccurate" in a scathing letter attacking the project, the Daily Mail reports.

The royals were sent copies of the script, but refused to support the film. Instead, they stressed they want nothing to do with the film.

"We have had absolutely no association with this project which claims to be about the lives of our parents”, the royal siblings wrote.

"For us, this film does not constitute a biographical work, but portrays only a part of her life and has been pointlessly glamourised, and contains important historical inaccuracies as well as scenes of pure fiction."

Kidman has in the past defended the controversial film, saying she was drawn to the role of Princess Grace because the film "reveals her great humanity but also her fears and frailties as she leaves her career behind.”

Nicole Kidman ‘in talks' on Grace Kelly role

Best Actor Adrien Brody, for film The Pianist, kisses Best Actress Nicole Kidman, for film The Hours, at the 75th Academy Awards in Hollywood in 2003. Source: Supplied

The Herald Sun reports

Nicole Kidman is in talks to play the late Grace Kelly, the screen legend who married the prince of Monaco, in a film by French director Olivier Dahan.

Kidman, 44, is in negotiations to play Kelly in Grace of Monaco, which Pierre-Ange Le Pogam is producing with writer Arash Amel, Variety reported today.

The entertainment daily said "nearly every top actress in Hollywood" is seeking the role and that no deal has been signed yet.

The screenplay by Amel is not a biopic but centres on the period from December 1961 to November 1962.

At the time Kelly, an Oscar winner and mother of two, had already spent six years as a princess and was called upon to save Monaco from an escalating crisis with France over the tiny monarchy's status as a tax haven.

Kidman won an Academy Award for her portrayal of author Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002).