Nicole Kidman rarely talks about Tom Cruise

Nicole Kidman rarely talks about her time living with Tom Cruise. However, while sharing behind-the-scenes stories about the classic film “Eyes Wide Shut”, the Australian beauty provided a glimpse of her ex-husband.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the release of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut , Nicole Kidman agreed to share behind-the-scenes stories that have never been told before with the Los Angeles Times , and the newspaper published the interview on July 22.

Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 psychological mystery film directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick. It is based on the 1926 short novel Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler. However, the setting of the story is moved from Vienna, Austria, in the early 20th century, to New York, USA, in the 1990s.

The film tells the story of the married life of Dr. William Harford ( Tom Cruise ) and his beautiful wife Alice Harford (Nicole Kidman). They were a model couple until Alice Harford confessed to her husband about her secret, deviant desires.

Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise play husband and wife in Eyes Wide Shut . Photo: Warner Bros.

The film has many hot scenes between the two main characters, but this is not a problem for Tom and Nicole because at that time they had been married for 9 years.

In a new interview, Nicole claimed that the director exploited her marriage to Tom as material for the film, which became a box office hit, grossing $162 million against a $65 million budget.

The Big Little Lies star and her ex-husband spent years on the show, which began filming in 1996 and wrapped in 1998, setting a record for the longest continuous filming period at 400 days.

According to Kidman, Mr. Kubrick asked her and Cruise many questions about their married life as he helped them shape their acting.

“There were ideas that Kubrick was interested in. He asked a lot of questions. He had a strong sense of the story he was telling. I remember him saying, ‘Triangular relationships are difficult. You have to be careful when it’s a triangle.’ Because one person can feel bullied. But he was aware of that and knew how to manage us,” Nicole said.

The Australian Swan did not forget to emphasize that she never felt bullied or disadvantaged when working with Cruise and Kubrick.

Nicole also recalled sharing a trailer with her ex-husband because the film crew was short on funds.

“We had a house 10 minutes away, but we lived in that trailer. Tom and I shared it because Stanley said, ‘You can’t each have a trailer. We can’t afford it,’” the actress said.

She added that Tom Cruise often plays video games in his car during breaks between filming.

Additionally, Nicole revealed that she spent a long time filming a scene that was ultimately cut from the final cut.

“It was a scene where Tom and I smoke weed in bed, and I laugh and do a long monologue. It took weeks. Most of it was rehearsed in the bedroom and the director didn’t like what I did. So we ended up redoing it… Stanley never goes over budget. What he buys is time,” the blonde beauty said.

According to Nicole, the final scene developed through many conversations between her and the two men. When they first started working, Nicole and Tom did not go to the set but met Kubrick at his house.

“Six, eight weeks went by and we were wondering when to start… We got comfortable with each other, comfortable enough to bounce ideas around. For that scene, we improvised the first part through rehearsals,” Nicole recalls.

The 1967-born star and her ex-husband and everyone, including Kubrick, never expected Eyes Wide Shut to be the last work of the Jewish-American filmmaker. He died at the age of 70 due to heart failure on March 7, 1999.

Nicole and Tom were still married while filming Kubrick’s final film. Photo: Getty Images.

Although there is not much information, this is one of the rare times Nicole shares about her ex-husband, Tom Cruise.

Tom and Nicole married on December 24, 1990. Together they adopted two children, Isabella (31) and Connor (29). Both followed their father into the mysterious sect of Scientology and cut off contact with their adoptive mother.

Tom filed for divorce from the Aquaman beauty in February 2001, citing “irreconcilable differences” after he was rumored to have dumped her that same year. The move shocked Nicole, who was widely suspected of having broken up with the then-famous couple due to the blonde beauty’s refusal to become a member of Scientology.

However, Nicole’s divorce from Tom Cruise was a release. To this day, the photo of Nicole happily skipping out of her lawyer’s office after completing the divorce proceedings remains one of the most iconic moments in Hollywood.

Nicole Kidman is happy after completing divorce proceedings with Tom Cruise. Photo: All Action.

While Nicole seemed comfortable talking about her ex-husband, Tom Cruise’s behavior showed his discomfort with his wife of more than a decade. In 2023, a source from the Daily Mail said that the actor born in 1962 refused to attend the 95th Academy Awards because he did not want to meet Nicole, despite the fact that Top Gun: Maverick , in which he played the lead role, received 6 nominations.

A year earlier, when Top Gun: Maverick premiered at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, Tom was awarded the honorary Palme d’Or by the organizers, and a video was released of the roles that made his name throughout his 40-year career.

The video features clips from Days of Thunder , Far and Away , and Eyes Wide Shut , three of which Tom co-starred with Nicole. However, the clips from all three films only feature Tom alone, with no mention of Nicole. Notably, Tom’s other female co-stars – including Kirsten Dunst, Renée Zellweger, and Penelope Cruz – all appear in the clip. Penelope also dated Tom for three years.