Nicole Kidman thinks Stanley Kubrick was carefully “mining” her and Tom Cruise’s marriage for inspiration for his ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ film.
Nicole Kidman thinks Stanley Kubrick was carefully ‘mining’ her and Tom Cruise’s marriage for inspiration for his ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ film
The Oscar-winner, 57, starred alongside Tom, 62, in the 1999 movie, which saw her play the wife of Tom’s doctor character Bill Hartford, who sends him reeling when she tells him she fantasised about sleeping with another man, sparking his descent into a shady underworld of orgies and satanic-style rituals controlled by society’s most rich and powerful forces.
Nicole – who married Tom nine years before the film came out and divorced him in 2001 – told the Los Angeles Times in an interview to mark the 25th anniversary of the film’s release when asked whether Stanley was taking inspiration from their marriage for the project: “I suppose he was mining it.”
She added: “There were ideas (Stanley) was interested in. He’d ask a lot of questions. But he had a strong sense of the story he was telling.
“I do remember him saying, ‘(Relationship) triangles are hard. You have to tread carefully when it’s a triangle’.
“Because one person could feel ganged up on. But he was aware of that and knew how to manage us.”
Nicole stressed she never felt “ganged up on” as she and Tom had such different relationships with Stanley.
She went on: “There’s something about being a woman in that equation, too. And Stanley liked women.
“He had a different relationship with Tom. They worked more closely together on his character.”
Fans have speculated shooting the film’s intense scenes that delved into complex couple dynamics put a string on the A-listers’ marriage, and Nicole said they spent weeks shooting one heavy scene that was eventually cut.
She added: “It was the scene with Tom and I where I start by smoking the spliff in bed and where I laugh and deliver the long monologue.
“That took many weeks. A lot of that was rehearsing in the bedroom and then him not liking what we’d done.
“So we ended up reworking it, constructing it as we went along. There was no need to rush. Stanley would never go over budget. What he bought was time.”
“When Tom and I first started with Stanley, it was at his home, and we didn’t even go over to the sets at Pinewood (Studios.)
“Six, eight weeks passed, and we’re wondering, ‘Are we ever going to start?’ “And we just wouldn’t start. We were getting comfortable with each other, comfortable enough to throw out ideas. For that scene, we improvised the beginning of it through the rehearsals.”
‘Eyes Wide Shut’ was met with a mixed critical reception when it came out but now has a cult following.
It was ‘Full Metal Jacket’ director Stanley’s last work before his death on 7 March, 1999, aged 70.
Nicole and Tom adopted their two children, daughter Isabella, 31, and son Connor, 29, in 1992 and 1995 respectively, before their 2001 divorce.
Nicole is now settled with musician Keith Urban, 56, with whom she has daughters Sunday, 16, and 13-year-old Faith.
Tom was married to actress Katie Holmes, 45, from 2006 to 2012 and they had 18-year-old daughter Suri.
