Skip to main content

Nicole Kidman and her ex-husband Tom Cruise have done a couple of projects together. But there was one Cruise movie she felt she was better off avoiding.

Nicole Kidman regretted doing this 1 movie with Tom Cruise

Nicole Kidman posing in a dress at the Oscars.
Nicole Kidman | ANGELA WEISS / Getty Images

Kidman and Cruise were used to collaborating on film projects. The two first met in the feature Days of Thunder, where Kidman played a doctor who falls for a race car driver. It was a part that Kidman wasn’t particularly too fond of.

“I wish I had a better role,” she once said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “It was kind of one-dimensional.”

But if there was any good that came out of the film for Kidman, it was bringing together her and Cruise. For Cruise, meeting Kidman might be what the superstar remembered most about the movie.

“My first reaction to meeting Nic was pure lust,” Cruise said. “It was totally physical.”

The two married just a year after their first film, and ended up starring in a few more projects together during their long marriage. Their second film Ron Howard’s Far and Away. There, the two were able to tap into their real chemistry for the romance drama. But she later felt doing the feature with her ex-husband at the time wasn’t the best decision.

“In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have done a movie with him so quickly,” Kidman said. “I probably should have done more by myself to be seen independently.”

Nicole Kidman was hysterical during her and Tom Cruise’s last film together

In an interview with DuJour, Kidman opened up more about her life in the spotlight after marrying Cruise. At the height of their relationship, the couple found themselves hounded and followed by tabloids and the paparazzi.

“We were in a bubble,” Kidman said. “Just the two of us. We became very dependent on one another.”

Cruise’s star-power also affected her career. Kidman believed her identity as an actor was heavily tied to her partner. But she felt this changed when she starred in the Gus Van Sant comedy To Die For. That followed a string of other projects where Kidman finally found her creative needs being satisfied.

After further establishing herself as an actor, Kidman and Cruise would reunite again onscreen for the Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut. The film focused on a married couple trying to spice up their sex-life for the sake of their relationship. But there was one scene in the film where Cruise and Kidman were arguing about being unfaithful in their marriage, and Kidman broke down in laughter during the take.

“I was hysterical,” she said. “We filmed that particular scene for over three weeks. I think Stanley shot 300 takes! It was an exhausting project, but in the end everyone felt they accomplished something special. I know critics think the movie is dark, but I think there is hope. Stanley was emphasizing the importance of loyalty and commitment in a marriage, that marriage is a relationship that has to transcend sexuality.”

Nicole Kidman once felt she only became a star because of Tom Cruise

Related

Tom Cruise’s Ex-Wives Have Something in Common When It Comes to Height

Kidman’s marriage with Cruise lasted from 1990 to 2001. At the time, Kidman was a bit blindsided by the breakup.

“I thought our life together was perfect,” she said.

Kidman confided that it took a certain amount of time to recover from the divorce. In hindsight, however, she remembered feeling that much of her star-power was dependent on her relationship with Cruise. So much so she didn’t always feel like she belonged with her contemporaries in the film industry.

“I felt I became a star only by association. I didn’t think [my early movies] were very good, which is why I would always cower in the background,” Kidman once told Glamour. “I thought, I don’t deserve to be here. We would go to the Oscars and I would think, ‘I’m here to support him.'”

But after her divorce from Cruise, Kidman’s career continued to thrive. She starred in critically acclaimed projects like The Hours, where she won an Oscar for Best Actress. And she eventually found new love again with her current husband Keith Urban.

“I’m in a place of gratitude and humility. I touch wood every day. The journey of life – we all go through it,” she said. “You have love, you lose love, you find new love. To have love again is a beautiful thing.”