Nicole Kidman has given a rare insight into her relationship with ex-husband Tom Cruise – and given their history the tone was somewhat unexpected.
Kidman, 57, was married to the Top Gun actor from 1990 to 2001, with the pair rapidly becoming Hollywood’s ‘’It’’ couple before it all came crashing down.
Kidman has been happily married to rocker Keith Urban since 2006 and tends not to dwell on the past, or talk too much about Cruise in interviews.
But in a July 22 interview with The Los Angeles Times, Kidman dished up some unexpected anecdotes while talking about Eyes Wide Shut, the 1999 film she and Cruise made with director Stanley Kubrick.
Eyes Wide Shut was an ‘’erotic thriller’’ that explored a doctor’s obsession with his wife’s sexual fantasies after she reveals she had contemplated having an affair.
Now considered one of Kubrick’s best films, it was widely panned by critics at the time, with many complaining that Kidman and Cruise couldn’t seem to replicate their off-camera chemistry for the big screen.
Asked if Kubrick was taking inspiration from their marriage during the making of the film, Kidman said: ‘’I suppose he was mining it’’.
‘’There were ideas (Kubrick) was interested in. He’d ask a lot of questions,’’ she said.
‘’Stanley liked women … He had a different relationship with Tom. They worked more closely together on his character.’’
Kidman revealed that she and Cruise shared a trailer during the film’s making because of its tight budget (even married couples, especially big-name ones like Cruise and Kidman, usually get a separate trailer on set).
Cruise took the smaller section of the trailer, Kidman added, because he was on set more often.
‘’We had a home 10 minutes away, but we lived in that trailer,’’ she said, adding that Cruise often played video games such as Minesweeper in between filming requirements.
Eyes Wide Shut was to be Kubrick’s last before his death on March 7, 1999 – six days after showing the final cut of the film to Warner Bros.
Just two years later, Kidman and Cruise had split.
Unexpectedly, Kidman seems to be looking back on that time with something approaching a nostalgic twinge.
She even reminisced to the Los Angeles Times about cooking up a storm with Cruise, Kubrick and co-star Sydney Pollack inside their set trailer.
‘’By the end, we’re learning how to make pasta because he’s a great cook, Sydney,’’ she said.
‘’In the little kitchen in our trailer, Sydney would make this unbelievable artichoke pasta .. and this incredible olive oil and roast chicken.
‘’Stanley would come to our trailer – we’d eat.’’
Cruise would go on to marry Katie Holmes in 2006, but they divorced in 2012 after having a child, Suri Cruise, who is now 18.
