Nicole Kidman opens up about making 'Eyes Wide Shut' with ex-husband Tom Cruise
Nicole Kidman is reflecting on the making of "Eyes Wide Shut" as the movie celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.
Released in 1999, the erotic psychological drama centers on the twisted relationship between Kidman's character, Alice Harford, and Tom Cruise's character, Dr. Bill Harford. Kidman and Cruise were married at the time.
Looking back on the film, the last from trailblazing filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, who died four months before its release, Kidman told the Los Angeles Times she's only "seen bits of it" and has "never watched it all the way through."
When she does watch it, it's unlikely she'll watch with her two young daughters, Sunday and Faith, whom she shares with now-husband Keith Urban: Kidman told the outlet the film is "definitely not" for them.
"At the AFI [Life Achievement Award] tribute, they saw the scene where I get stoned. They showed that and I was like, 'Ooooh. Golly. OK.' I sat next to my daughter, Sunday, watching that," she recalled. "She said, 'Mom, that was good.'"
Read on to see what else Kidman said about "Eyes Wide Shut."
On the infamously long production
Kidman and Cruise shot "Eyes Wide Shut" for nearly two years, but the Australian actress said she doesn't have any complaints.
"I would have stayed a third year," she said. "Does that mean I'm crazy?"
Kidman said she and Cruise spent so much time on set that they "lived" in the trailer they shared due to the production not being able to afford two separate trailers, despite living 10 minutes away.
"Tom had a smaller area because he was running stuff," she recalled. "And he'd play video games. That was when ['Minesweeper'] was big. So there was a lot of that."
On Kubrick "mining" her marriage
Kidman said she believed Kubrick was "mining" her marriage with Cruise.
"There were ideas he was interested in. He'd ask a lot of questions. But he had a strong sense of the story he was telling," she noted. "I do remember him saying, 'Triangles are hard. You have to treat carefully when it's a triangle.' Because one person could feel ganged up on."
The Oscar winner said Kubrick "was aware of that and knew how to manage us," saying he never ganged up on her.
"But there's something about being a woman in that equation, too. And Stanley liked women," she stated. "He had a different relationship with Tom. They worked more closely together on his character."
On what she brought to the role
Kidman said she brought her own "boldness" to playing Alice.
"I'm quite up-front, and Alice becomes quite up-front, particularly when she was stoned ... although that wasn't me when I was stoned," she said. "I was just naturally like that. Up-front."
The "Big Little Lies" star also took credit for a scene in which Alice drops her dress -- and claimed ownership of the dress itself.
"The scene where I drop the dress ... that was me. That wasn't written. That was my dress from my closet," she recalled, noting how she showed Kubrick her personal wardrobe and they drew from that. "That's how that happened."
