Am i missing something or why Kidman for british role?

Well Brits get cast in American films playing Americans all the time, same way Americans get cast in Australia play Australians etc. I don't see problem, they are actors after all.

Patti Lomax was actually Canadian, not British.

Check the imdb interesting facts about the movie. The original actress dropped out and Firth himself selected Kidman. I thought she was perfect in this role.

The reason they cast Kidman instead of an unknown is for ticket sales. Nothing wrong with that. That's the name of the game in that business.

You're right, though, that hers was a small part not requiring much in the way of acting (with the exception of maybe one scene). Bet she got paid a lot of money and didn't have to work that long for it.

As for Americans pretending to be British in films...they're actors. That's what they do. British played Italians in old Shakespeare plays, Brits play Americans here in our country (have you seen the tv drama House? He's British, not American), and one of the most successful in recent history is of course Texas Rene Zellweger as Bridget Jones.

Kidman is Australian, not American, though. The world has gone global.

well Kubrick picked her specifically in Eyes Wide Shut because she IS Australian, but reason is a bit more complex.

it was a Brit film as Kubrick left america in 1961 never to return, BUT it was about [if you will] the American Beauty [just as much as Mendes' version in same year] but explored the reason FOR the Amerian Beauty, which was the small f feminist Operating Manual called The Female Eunuch by the Australian Germaine Greer in 1970.

if you under 60 here we have Wiki explanation OF the takeover:

The Female Eunuch hit the bookstands in London in October 1970. By March 1971, it had nearly sold out its second printing and had been translated into 11 languages.

The main thesis of The Female Eunuch is that the "traditional" suburban, consumerist, nuclear family represses women sexually, and that this devitalizes them, rendering them eunuchs. It is a "fitful, passionate, scattered text, not cohesive enough to qualify as a manifesto," writes Laura Miller. "It's all over the place, impulsive, and fatally naive -- which is to say it is the quintessential product of its time."

so he has Kidman dressed IN the same rig as the book cover and DOING the same bitchy mocking routine as Greer's whole book.

the ironic part is Greer by 1999 renounced her whole empire and became a pedophile but as Kubrick got killed and 20 minutes cut from movie we will never know the full Greer story Kidman was portraying.

But what a fabulous takeoff by Tagliatelle bloke OF the Kidman/Greer laugh in Inglourious Basterds

http://www.kindleflippages.com/ablog/

I think Kidman has played other British characters hasn't she ?