LOS ANGELES — There’s a kid on the way for Nicole Kidman.
The 40-year-old actress and her husband, country singer Keith Urban, “are expecting a baby,” publicist Catherine Olim said Monday in a brief statement.
“The couple are thrilled,” Olim said.
Kidman is currently at home in Sydney, Australia, where she has been working on Baz Luhrmann’s epic romance, “Australia.”
Kidman was due to start filming for director Stephen Daldry’s post-World War II drama “The Reader” later this month but her Australian publicist Wendy Day said she understands Kidman has had to withdraw from the film because of the pregnancy.
A call to the Weinstein Co., which is producing “The Reader,” was not immediately returned. Speculation has been increasing in recent weeks over Kidman’s maternal condition. Dozens of paparazzi have been tracking her, focusing in on her “baby bump.”
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“For years I’ve seen speculation and for years it’s never been right, so I didn’t think it was right this time,” Day said. “And then she’s just rung this morning.”
Television footage in Australia on Tuesday showed reporters congratulating Kidman and Urban. Kidman said she was “very excited,” but declined to say when the baby was due.
Asked whether the baby was a boy or a girl, Urban said its sex was a secret, before the pair got into a car and drove away.
The baby would be the first for Kidman and Urban. She has two adopted children — Isabella, 14, and Connor, 12, — with ex-husband Tom Cruise.
Kidman recently confided to Vanity Fair that she had a miscarriage early on in her relationship with Cruise, leading them to adopt.
She told the magazine she was keen to try for another baby.
“I’m yearning to have one,” she said. “I think I would be very sad if I wasn’t able to have a baby. Keith knows I want one, and he has been getting there slowly.”
Cruise filed for divorce in February 2001 after 10 years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences. The divorce was finalized later that year.
Kidman won an Oscar for her role in the 2002 film “The Hours.”
Urban, a singer and guitarist raised in Australia, won a Grammy in 2006 for best male country vocal.
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