Nicole Kidman detailed working with her ex-Tom Cruise and director Stanley Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut for the movie’s 25th anniversary
The Eyes Wide Shut actress, who starred alongside her ex-husband Tom Cruise in the 1999 film directed by Stanley Kubrick, recently reflected on the filming process—and whether she thought Kubrick drew inspiration from her and Cruise’s relationship.
“I suppose he was mining it,” Kidman—who was married to Cruise for 10 years until their 2001 split—recently told the Los Angeles Times. “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. I do remember him saying, ‘Triangles are hard. You have to tread carefully when it’s a triangle.’”
The Oscar winner added, “Because one person could feel ganged up on. But he was aware of that and knew how to manage us.”
And as the 57-year-old—who shares kids Isabella, 31, and Connor, 29, with the Top Gun star—further explained, she and her ex each had their own rapport with their director.
“There’s something about being a woman in that equation, too,” she continued. “And Stanley liked women. He had a different relationship with Tom. They worked more closely together on his character.”
Though Kidman rarely shares insight on her past relationship with the Mission Impossible star, she has previously addressed the “narrative” of the movie—which focuses on themes of power and infidelity—being an accurate portrayal of their romance in real life.
“We were happily married through that,” Kidman—who is also mom to kids Sunday, 15, and Faith, 13, with husband Keith Urban—told the New York Times in October 2020. “We would go go-kart racing after those scenes. We’d rent out a place and go racing at 3 in the morning. I don’t know what else to say. Maybe I don’t have the ability to look back and dissect it. Or I’m not willing to.”
She also maintained that their time with Kubrick was a positive one, despite any reports of the contrary.
“This is where the fallacy is: We loved working with him,” Kidman continued. “We shot that for two years. We had two kids and were living in a trailer on the lot primarily, making spaghetti because Stanley liked to eat with us sometimes. We were working with the greatest filmmaker and learning about our lives and enjoying our lives on set.”