Scott D. Pierce: Nicole Kidman says sex during wartime is ‘awesome’ — on film, that is

In the fact-based HBO movie "Hemingway & Gellhorn," the two title characters make passionate love in the midst of the Spanish Civil War.

Really passionate love while bombs explode and the building collapses around them.

And it was "awesome," according to Nicole Kidman, who stars as acclaimed war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, the third wife of Ernest Hemingway (Clive Owen).

"It really emphasizes that they came together through war," said Kidman. "They fed off that drama and that energy, in a way. Two people that would make love through a building collapsing, that says something about who they are."

Can’t really argue with that.

Gellhorn’s name doesn’t ring down through the years the way Hemingway’s does, but she is far more than just the third of his four wives. She was one of the great war correspondents of the 20th century, a pioneer who covered everything from the fight against Franco to the European and Asian theaters in World War II to the Six Day War in the Middle East to the Vietnam War.

At age 81, she reported on the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama. And Kidman said she was inspired by Gellhorn’s life. "I love these women that defy the odds and that burn bright," she said.

The Hemingway-Gellhorn romance certainly burned hot. "It was probably the serious love of his life," Owen said. "The relationship lasted about seven years, and it was incredibly intense, incredibly passionate. He met his match, really."

As depicted in the 2½-hour movie, which premieres Monday at 10 p.m. on HBO, Gellhorn was both journalist and crusader. She hated the fascists and the nationalist Chinese and found stories in the regular people most affected by war.

And at one point during the film, she uses an expletive to refer to journalistic objectivity.

"She didn’t believe in being objective as a journalist," Kidman said. "She believed in having an opinion. And I think that’s important in this day and age — having an opinion and being willing to stand up for that."

The story of Gellhorn and Hemingway’s tempestuous romance plays out on a background of some of the most important events of the ’30s and ’40s. And the film very cleverly and seamlessly inserts Kidman and Clive into archival footage, which works in an amazing way.

Although she gets second billing in the title, "Hemingway & Gellhorn" centers on Gellhorn. There’s a line in the movie when she says, "I do not see myself as a footnote to someone else’s life."

And the love-among-the-ruins-of-war scene tells you as much about her as it does about him.

"It was important," Kidman said, "because you really see that this is where they’re their most comfortable, they’re most passionate, and that’s where their love thrives."