The thing you have to understand about Nicole Kidman is, she’s shy. Really shy. And private — this is a woman who jealously guards her privacy, thank you very much. Her husband Tom Cruise is the exact same way. Sometimes, Nicole recently told an interviewer, Tom will go to party and just stand in the corner and not talk to anybody! That’s how shy he is. And other times Nicole will go to a dinner party with Tom and it’s full of Tom’s friends and Nicole will totally clam up because she’s so shy and uncomfortable in front of strangers. You just can’t get much shyer than that.

But now Nicole and Tom face one of life’s little ironic situations. On the one hand, they’re really shy and private. On the other hand, a movie studio recently paid them millions of dollars to take off their clothes and be filmed having sex, and both Tom and Nicole want as many people as possible to spend seven dollars apiece to watch the movie of the two of them having sex. They get a share of the gross receipts, you see. To complicate matters further, the moviemaker Stanley Kubrick, who convinced them to take off their clothes and be filmed having sex — not that it took that much convincing, probably — is dead! He croaked! In fact, he died just after he finished editing the movie. Fortunately, he did shoot an advertisement for the film that has been playing in several thousand theaters across the country.