Kidman jokes about baby rumours

A refreshed Nicole Kidman is back to work in Los Angeles, joking about those pregnancy rumours and admitting she is already homesick for Australia.

The days of lying around in her mum and dad's Sydney home during her four-month Australian summer sojourn are now pleasant memories.

The Oscar-winning actor was yesterday on the hustings at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills, spreading the word about her new thriller, The Interpreter.

Although the talk centred on her role as Silvia Broome, an African-born United Nations interpreter who unearths an assassination plot, Kidman could not resist poking fun at the gossip that she was pregnant.

"I'm wearing a maternity dress now," Kidman, exquisitely covered in a sexy sapphire coloured Givenchy dress, said.

The actor, who adopted two children, Isabella and Connor, with ex-husband Tom Cruise, was still regretting her recent "I want to have a baby" remark during an interview on Australia's Network Ten.

"I made a big mistake there," Kidman explained, although she did admit again she was clucky.

"I was sitting around and they asked me a question and I went 'Well, I'd really like to have a baby'.

"... but, yeah, I'd love to have another child."

Kidman, who has made 12 films in the past four years, recounted how she was able to relax "at a very deep level" in Australia the past four months after her planned Australian film with Russell Crowe, Eucalyptus, imploded around script concerns.

The 37-year-old has been in the US for only a couple of days, but she is pining for her closest friend, sister Antonia.

It was Antonia, along with her mother Janelle and father Antony, who kept her going during the darker periods of her life.

"I have a sister who is almost like my twin," Kidman said.

"We are incredibly close. I've just left Australia actually and I'm pining for her now, which people just don't understand.

"There was only two of us growing up and we went through a lot together.

"And I have a father and mother who after 45 years are still married and pretty together people, so I'd say that group of people there, I would not be here at all if it wasn't for them."

In The Interpreter, Kidman had to learn a fictitious language, a mixture of two common African languages - Swahili and Shona.

Director Sydney Pollock went to a special centre in Britain to develop the new language, called Ku, so it would appear authentic in the film.

"It's a total fictional accent," said Pollack, who was also at the media conference.

Kidman said the dialect was easier to learn than other languages such as French.

"I wouldn't be able to speak a word of it now," Kidman smiled.

"It's like when you study for your exams and as soon as the exam is over you can't remember it."

The Interpreter opens in NZ on April 21.

- AAP