Nicole Kidman speaks on 'Nine,' 'The Danish Girl,' women in Hollywood

Nicole Kidman as Claudia in "Nine"

Credit: Weinstein Company

Not only will musical “Nine” serve up some song and dance for audiences as it’s released in the last weeks of December, but there may be a message for Hollywood to be had about women’s acting roles.

In the forthcoming film, Nicole Kidman plays Claudia, the frequent leading lady in films by director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis). The two share a poignant moment, when the floundering director struggles to describe Claudia’s ambiguous role as a series of muses in a great Italian man’s life. It's a premise that mirror's Guido's own creative situation and dilemm.

“So I am the women behind the great man?” Kidman’s Claudia asks. “I’d rather be the man.”

“The way [Guido’s] describing it -- to be specific in that scene -- obviously that [man’s] role sounds far more riveting than all of the other things things he’s presenting to me. In Hollywood,” Kidman says at a press event in New York, ”roles are better for men.”

Then, too, Kidman expanded on her impending performance in 2010’s “The Danish Girl” as Einar Wegener, a man who undergoes a sex change, acting opposite of Gwyneth Paltrow. “I’m about to play a man, so strangely enough, that doesn’t ring true for me,” she laughs.

The 42-year-old actress mentioned there are exceptions to the rules in Hollywood, or even a rewriting of the rules: she cited Angelina Jolie’s role in the 2008 action film “Wanted,” which was a part originally penned for a man. “I wish they’d do that more often,” Kidman says.

Click here to see new photos of the ladies of “Nine.”

Click here to read HitFix's exclusive interview with Fergie, on her role in "Nine."