Nicole Kidman has admitted she was “fearful and deeply vulnerable” following her divorce from Keith Urban. After 19 years of marriage, the 59-year-old Australian actress split from her country singer husband, 58, last year, before their divorce was finalised in January.
Kidman on her marriage breakdown
Speaking to British Vogue, Kidman explained that her life has taken a different route than she expected. She said: “There was a point where I was very fearful and deeply vulnerable which is exposing. And then at the same time (I’m) going, ‘Well, I can either really not confront it and just curl up, or I can just go forward with an enormous amount of hope’.”
The actress added: “At the same time, I’m like, ‘OK, I didn’t expect this. I had a different view of what my life was going to be, but this is what it is now’,” she said. “You make all these plans, and you have all these ideas of what it’s all going to be like and then it’s… not. You have to adjust. You adapt. The future, it’s completely unknown to me right now.”
Feelings-first approach
Kidman went on to say she tackled both her personal and professional life with a “feelings first” approach. “That’s just who I am. I don’t overthink things and I’m probably not that analytical. I’m far more feeling-centred and I lead with my heart. I just go, ‘OK, what do I feel here? I’ll give it a go’. It throws people, because I think they think I’ll be far more measured and I’m not,” she said.
“I can still approach things intellectually, but my desire is not to be ruled by my head. I’ve always wanted to live a well-examined life, so what does that entail? Trying things, making mistakes, failing, getting back up, moving on, embracing love, staying open, keeping the heart open and the possibilities.”
Reflections on first marriage to Tom Cruise
In the interview, the actress also spoke about her first marriage to Tom Cruise, to whom she was married from 1990 until 2001. She said: “I got married so young. Suddenly I was 22, 23 years old and I had this huge movie star husband. But it just seemed completely natural. We just fell madly in love and it was that simple.”
However, she recalled some people warning her the marriage would “affect” her career. “I’m like, ‘I don’t care. I’m in love. I want to be married.’ And then I was his ‘wife’ and they were like, ‘See, we told you.’ I’m like, ‘So what? I wasn’t meant to marry the man I love? Of course I’ll throw my career away. I don’t care’,” she added.
Throughout her career, Kidman has won an Academy Award, Bafta, six Golden Globe Awards and two Emmys. Rising to fame in the 1983 Australian film BMX Bandits, she went on to star in Practical Magic, Moulin Rouge!, Lion and The Hours, as well as appearing in the TV series Big Little Lies, The Undoing and Nine Perfect Strangers. She and Urban met in Los Angeles in 2005 and were married in Sydney the following year. They had two daughters together – Sunday Rose, 18, and Faith, 15.
