Better Times!
Nicole Kidman says she was ‘happily married’ to Tom Cruise while filming Eyes Wide Shut
It was Tom Cruise’s idea for his real-life wife to play opposite of him in the film.
Nicole Kidman is starring in an upcoming HBO mini-series called ‘The Undoing.’ According to The New York Times, Kidman plays Grace Fraser, “a Manhattan therapist whose impeccably ordered life is suddenly shattered by violence and lust.” In her first interview in 6 months, Kidman spoke to the Times for an article published Wednesday. The actress opened about her upcoming series and her relationship with Tom Cruise while they filmed the 1999 sexual and psychological drama “Eyes Wide Shut.” Kidman and Cruise were married from 1990 to 2001 and played husband and wife in the classic film.
‘Eyes Wide Shut’ was directed by Stanley Kubrick and is his most notorious film. Kubrick passed away shortly after it was made. The Independent called it an “eternally divisive psycho-sexual meditation.” The movie is notorious for having one of the famous on-screen orgy scenes in Hollywood history. In 1995 Cruise met Kubrick at his home to talk about the film and the possibility of him playing the lead. Cruise was excited about the film from the start and suggested that Kidman play opposite of him. At the time, the married couple was Hollywood royalty and the world was obsessed with the A-Listers. Kubrick agreed and used their real-life relationship to his advantage and sent them on an immersive experience. Kidman played the wife of a successful doctor, played by Cruise. After her character confesses that she felt a sexual desire for a stranger, he goes on a downward spiral of jealousy.
According to The Independent, Kubrick explored fissures in their real marriage for the film. He had Kidman disclose her inner-most personal feelings in extensive therapy sessions. They were never revealed to Cruise. Kubrick also forbade Cruise from coming to set when Kidman was shooting the scenes living out her sexual fantasies with the stranger.
In the interview with the Times, Kidman was asked if at any point in the middle of filming she ever thought, ‘This is a weird thing we’re doing.’ Kidman explained that it took two years to finish filming the movie. “We had two kids and were living in a trailer on the lot primarily, making spaghetti because Stanley liked to eat with us sometimes,” Kidman said. She continued,“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.”
Kidman was also asked if doing these scenes with Cruise brought up any negative feelings in their relationship. Fans often speculated if doing the film together was the beginning of the end for the couple. They divorced in August 2001, almost exactly 2 years after it was released. Kidman refuted these ideas and said,“That fits the narrative that people came up with, but I definitely didn’t see it like that.” Kidman continued, “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.”
“The Undoing” premieres Oct. 25.
