Sad Nicole Kidman divorce comments resurface in new documentary
Nicole Kidman once made a strong declaration about marriage. Now those words have come back to haunt her in a new documentary.
A new documentary about Nicole Kidman has brought back to light hopeful remarks she once made about marriage.
As she and second husband Keith Urban prepare to settle their divorce after 19 years of marriage, the Aussie star’s comments about commitment have resurfaced in the new doco, Nicole Kidman: Outback to Oscars, which is now streaming for free on Tubi.
The film was released just before her split from Urban and therefore makes no mention of their break-up, but it does dive into her first divorce with Hollywood megastar Tom Cruise.
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In archival footage, the actress was promoting her 1992 drama Far And Away which co-starred Cruise, when New Zealand journalist Paul Holmes boldly steered the conversation towards their marriage.
“You’ve talked about the marriage as the only marriage you’re ever going to have. How do you know that?” Holmes bluntly asked her, as Cruise and director Ron Howard sat beside the star.
“I think if you make that commitment and you say that’s what it’s going to be, and you don’t shy away from making that, then I think that it’s possible,” she replied.
The documentary maps out Kidman’s life from aspiring actress growing up in Sydney to bona fide star basking in Oscars glory.
But before the little gold statue came the first big heartbreak in her personal life: the demise of her 11-year marriage to Cruise in 2001. And it appears the 1999 erotic drama Eyes Wide Shut, on which they co-starred, marked the beginning of the end for the Hollywood power couple.
Following their divorce, Kidman threw herself into her projects, explaining in a panel discussion at the 2015 Women in the World Summit – which featured in the Tubi doco – that she thought playing make-believe on screen would help her heal from heartbreak.
“To be complete honest, I was running from my life at that time,” she told host Tina Brown of why she leaned hard into her career. “I wasn’t able to handle the reality of my life and as an actor you have this wonderful thing where you can go and get lost in somebody else’s life and become somebody else for a period of time.”
“When I look back on it, I really see that. And during that time I worked a lot. The work was a great place for me to exist.”
She said diving in led to her Best Actress Oscar in 2003 for The Hours, but it didn’t ease the loneliness she felt.
“That culminated in winning an Oscar and that caused an epiphany which was actually, ‘This is not the answer,’” she told Brown in archival footage.
“I was holding a gold statue and I was sitting in the Beverly Hills hotel and it was all extraordinary, and I was the loneliest I’d ever been.”
Kidman’s past comments mirror recent remarks she made this week during a conversation with Ariana Grande for Interview Magazine.
When the Wicked star asked how she was doing, Kidman said she “hanging in there” and work had been her saviour.
Kidman told Grande that she was working on the Practical Magic sequel during the difficult period and felt nothing but “protected and loved” by the women in the cast.
“Sandy Bullock and I, and then Joey King and Maisie [Williams] – we had an incredible cast. A lot of times I don’t have fun when I’m filming because it’s more …’
“Emotionally draining?” Grande offered.
“Yeah,” agreed Kidman. “But I have such a strong relationship with all those women, so I felt protected and loved. It was just very, very safe.”
Kidman married Urban in 2006 after just one year of dating. The pair quietly separated earlier this year but news of their break-up was only made public in September 30. One day later, she filed for divorce.
Nicole Kidman: Outback to Oscars is now streaming for free on Tubi
Originally published as Sad Nicole Kidman divorce comments resurface in new documentary
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