THE ESCAPE ARTIST From To Die For to Moulin Rouge! to The Hours, Nicole Kidman is a master of disappearing into her roles. Now she’s gone and pulled a Houdini on Hollywood, turning up in the backwoods of Tennessee.

By Holly Millea Photographed by Carter Smith Styled by Joe Zee.

What wind tumbled her to this far-off place, casting a Hollywood star into the quotidian existence of Southern life with its “How y’all doin’ today?”s, comfort food, and long, empty stretches of poplar-lined roads? You can lay off the gas; nobody’s in a hurry here, unless they’ve robbed a bank. And if you don’t slow down you’ll miss Barbara’s Home Cookin’, an old white house with green columns that turned into a restaurant 12 years ago when Barbara nailed a sign to the door. She’s 74 and works back in the kitchen every day, often with her great-granddaughters running around her skirts.

The waitress has a warm, ruddy face and thick curler-set hair. Hon, you can sit anywhere you like; how about here by the window—someone left you the newspaper. Would you like some coffee? Some fresh banana bread while you’re waitin’?…This coffee’s caffeinated, is that all right? I forgot to ask. Findin’ any news in that paper?

A suspect is being sought in a rash of vending machine break-ins; volunteers are needed to transport cancer patients to and from treatment; Elvis’ favorite peacock jumpsuit sold at auction for $300,000; and, bowing to pressure, the Wilson County Fair officials will extend this Sunday’s “God & Country Day” $2 Christian discount to atheists.

A blue city in a red state, Nashville is the birthplace of country music, cotton candy, the Grand Ole Opry, Hee Haw, and, more recently, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban.

Her father is the country music star Keith Urban. Here comes her mother, the actress Nicole Kidman, now.

Thin as a whistle 17 days after delivering, she’s a vision in white, from her short, silky sundress to the sheer cotton cardigan to skin so pale you can see the blue highway of veins running beneath. Removing a huge straw sun hat, Kidman reveals her milky blond hair pulled back and knotted at the base of her slender neck.

“She has this heavenly quality,” says Shirley MacLaine, her Bewitched mother. “I find her so otherworldly beautiful, otherworldly intelligent, otherworldly resilient, I call her My Alien. And only an alien could lose all that baby weight in two weeks.”

Read more about Nicole Kidman in Elle