When Nicole Kidman was in London recently on her promotional tour for Nine, she sat down for an interview with a television journalist named Andrew Marr. According to this press report, Marr is one of those television people who like to ask awkward questions of his guests in an effort to make them squirm or hedge or deny or walk out, something like that. While I think asking difficult questions should be applauded, the kind of hard-hitting stuff might be better left to politicians rather than, say, an actress like Nicole Kidman.

So, when Nicole was on Marr’s show, he asked her about Scientology and whether it was a “bullying cult”. Nicole kept her cool, and refused to engage. Xenu provideth, Nicole!

Scientology is a sore point with Australian actress Nicole Kidman years after she divorced Tom Cruise, one of the world’s most famous followers of the controversial religion.

In London to promote her new film, Nine, Kidman froze out the BBC’s main political presenter, Andrew Marr, when he asked her about the topic in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Marr’s question on Scientology, and Kidman’s reaction were cut from the TV version of The Andrew Marr Show, but appeared in an extended interview on the program’s website.

Marr said: “Scientology. It is, a lot of people would say, a bullying cult.”

Kidman replied: “I’m here to publicise Nine. If I was here to do an expose on myself then I’d be like, ‘let’s go,’ but I have no interest in discussing any of that.”

Marr said: “You don’t want to talk about Scientology in any way at all?”

Kidman answered: “Nope. I’ll talk about Nine.”

Marr – who sparked controversy earlier this year by asking UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown whether he took pills to help him get through – backed down, launching into a question about Kidman’s Academy Award-winning portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours.

Kidman, who married country singer Keith Urban in a Catholic ceremony in Sydney in 2006, stars alongside Cruise’s ex-girlfriend Penelope Cruz in the musical, Nine.

Earlier in the interview, Kidman said she and Cruise were “deeply committed” in their marriage at the time of filming the Stanley Kubrick film, Eyes Wide Shut, in London in 1999, two years before the couple divorced.

[From The Brisbane Times]

Eh. This is the kind of thing that makes me feel for Nic. There’s a lot of documentation, both from the tabloids and legitimate media, that indicates Nicole was never crazy about Xenu or the Church of Scientology. Some even point to Nicole’s devout Catholicism, even after being married to Tom Cruise for more than nine years, as one of the main reasons for their split. You know what? She divorced Couch-Jumper McXenu, and even though I would love to know Nicole’s real thoughts on CoS, I’m perfectly willing to give her a pass on answering those questions publicly. She got out of the clutches of Xenu. Barely. Let her promote her movie in peace.

Nicole (in the suit) at a luncheon for ‘Nine’ in Los Angeles on December 9, 2009. Credit: Diane Cohen/Fame. Also, Nicole in leather on December 14, 2009 on the ‘Today’ set in New York. Credit: WENN.