Once upon a time ago, Nicole Kidman was married to Tom Cruise. The award winning actor and actress were married to each other during the 90s, where after their marriage ended nearly two decades ago in February 2001.
During this time, the Hollywood A-listers were the biggest power couple in the entertainment industry, and acted in the film “Eyes Wide Shut” together. Following an interview with The New York Times, Kidman delves into some of the intimate moments she shared while acting in this film with Cruise.
“Eyes Wide Shut” features a couple that goes through an intensely emotional journey together. For this reason, The New York Times interviewer asked Kidman about the pair’s dynamic when she played this complicated role with her now ex-husband:
“You know how in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ you have that monologue in which your character is talking about infidelity and says to Tom’s character, ‘I was ready to give up everything?’, asked the interviewer. “That speech is all about emasculation and emotional aggression. If you’re acting those scenes with the person to whom you’re married, and doing it as part of this immersive process, can it open up negative feelings that later you maybe wish you hadn’t opened?”
“That fits the narrative that people came up with, but I definitely didn’t see it like that,” explains Kidman. “We were happily married through that. We would go go-kart racing after those scenes. We’d rent out a place and go racing at 3 in the morning. I don’t know what else to say. Maybe I don’t have the ability to look back and dissect it. Or I’m not willing to.”
Kidman and Cruise also had the honour of working with the man who is considered to be one of the greatest filmmakers in cinematic history, Stanley Kubrick. “Eyes Wide Shut” was the last film Kubrick directed before he passed away in 1999. Accordingly, her experience with Kubrick is undeniably important for Kidman.
So, when the interviewer asked if the “total immersion and the personal psychological analysis that he (Kubrick) asked of you (Kidman) and Tom Cruise as a couple for that film” was a “weird thing”, the answer received from Kidman was also intriguingly personal:
“We loved working with him,” assures the 53-year-old actress. “We shot that for two years. We had two kids and were living in a trailer on the lot primarily, making spaghetti because Stanley liked to eat with us sometimes. We were working with the greatest filmmaker and learning about our lives and enjoying our lives on set. We would say, ‘When is it going to end?’ We went over there thinking it was going to be three months. It turned into a year, a year and a half. But you go, As long as I surrender to what this is, I’m going to have an incredible time.”
The “Bewitched” actress goes onto describe her and Cruise’s relationship with Kubrick during that time. “Stanley, he wasn’t torturous. He was arduous in that he would shoot a lot. But I’d sit on the floor of his office and talk, and we’d watch animal videos. He said animals were so much nicer than human beings,” recalls Kidman. “Though I do remember we were watching a wildlife thing where you saw the lion going after an antelope, and he could hardly watch it. Interesting, isn’t it?”
Looking back at this time in the 90s gives us a precious sense of nostalgia that can only be experienced through personal recollections like this. Thanks to Kidman divulging a little more about her life with Cruise, we get to have another taste of their iconic marriage, which lasted for 11 years.
Even though their marriage ended long ago, their legendary movies are still coming to life and we are more than grateful for their talents.
Sources: E Online, New York Times.
