Nicole Kidman said in a new British Vogue cover story that she was repeatedly warned about marrying Tom Cruise because it could hugely impact her career. The two A-listers met in 1989 during the production of Tony Scott’s “Days of Thunder,” which marked Kidman’s Hollywood feature debut. The duo got married one year later and stayed together for 11 years. Kidman credits the marriage and the immense tabloid scrutiny that followed with teaching her how to endure under the spotlight.
“Strangely enough, I feel comfortable. Is that weird? That’s so weird,” Kidman said about life in the public eye. “But you have to remember literally, because of who I married at such a young age, I was thrust into it since I was 22… [My life has been] more time like that than not. My memory of it not being that is quite blurry, because I was really young.”
“I got married so young,” Kidman continued about Cruise. “Suddenly I was 22, 23 years old and I had this huge movie star husband. But it just seemed completely natural. We just fell madly in love and it was that simple. I remember people saying to me, ‘OK, well this is really going to affect your career.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t care. I’m in love. I want to be married.’ And then I was his ‘wife’ and they were like, ‘See, we told you.’ I’m like, ‘So what? I wasn’t meant to marry the man I love? Of course I’ll throw my career away. I don’t care.’”
While Kidman’s personal life became tabloid fodder during her decade married to Cruise, her film career took off with beloved titles such as “To Die For,” “The Portrait of a Lady” and “Practical Magic.” She made two movies with Cruise during their marriage: 1992’s misfire “Far and Away” and 1999’s classic “Eyes Wide Shut,” which marked the final movie of Stanley Kubrick’s career.
The couple announced their separation in February 2001, with Cruise filing for divorce that same month and citing irreconcilable differences. Kidman’s film career than exploded with the releases of “Moulin Rouge!” and “The Others” that year, followed by her Oscar-winning role in “The Hours” one year later.
Kidman told Vanity Fair in 2013 that one of the main reasons her marriage to Cruise failed was because of just how young she was when the two got together. She explained: “I was a child, really, when I got married. And I needed to grow up.”
Cruise recently mentioned Kidman in his Sight & Sound magazine interview earlier this year. According to Cruise, it was he who suggested casting Kidman to Kubrick for “Eyes Wide Shut.” Cruise wanted his wife to play the free-spirted Alice Harford opposite himself as the repressed New York socialite, Bill Harford.
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“I flew out to his house, and I landed in his backyard. I read the script the day before and we spent the day talking about it. I knew all of his films,” Cruise said. “Then it was basically he and I getting to know each other. And when we were doing that, I suggested Nicole play the role [of Alice]. Because, obviously, she’s a great actress.”
Read Kidman’s full British Vogue cover story here.
From Variety US