Nicole Kidman: Wild parties, Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe’s ‘shoey’

AUSTRALIA’S favourite leading lady has spilled the beans on her early days of wild parties and her recollection of the day she met Russell Crowe – something he disputes – in a tell-all interview ahead of the release of her latest movie.

NICOLE Kidman and Russell Crowe apparently can’t quite agree on their first meeting.

“It was at a house party that I threw in Darlinghurst with my then-boyfriend,” Kidman insists. “There were about 500 people at that party.

“Can you believe it, my wild past?” she jokes. “And Russell drank champagne out of my shoe. But he says, ‘I never did that’. He says, ‘I stood behind you and you didn’t talk to me’.”

She cracks up laughing. “So, we have a slightly different way from how we remember meeting.”

Either way, the pair’s friendship didn’t blossom overnight. “We are both Australian actors who are from the same generation so we knew each other, or rather, circled each other, but I got to know him slowly. And then when he came to the States I got to know him better. I have a lot of memories now.”

Given Crowe’s famously unpredictable temperament, would she say most of the memories are good ones?

She laughs. “Yes, they are all good. I have an enormous amount of love and affection for him because we have been friends literally our whole life. I think it’s an admirable thing when you forge your way through, decade after decade.”

Boy Erased starring Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe.

Surprisingly, then, their onscreen collaboration in Boy Erased has been a long time coming. Back in 2005, they were set to star in the Jocelyn Moorhouse film Eucalyptus, but the production fell apart. And although they had hoped to work together since, it took Joel Edgerton coming knocking with his second directorial effort to bring them together.

Edgerton also penned the script, adapted from Garrard Conley’s 2016 memoir, of the same name, and takes on a pivotal role in the film. In awe, Kidman says: “I can’t believe Joel is capable of so much. I can act and produce at the same time and that’s hard, but I can’t imagine the pressure he was under as writer, director, producer and actor.”

On the assumption that Edgerton shares a history with Kidman and Crowe, I ask him if they came on board for “mates rates”. He chuckles. “Actually, I didn’t know them that well but when I met Garrard, I asked to look at the photos of his family, and the moment I saw them, I had this feeling in my stomach, ‘This is Russell and Nicole’!”

The film stars Lucas Hedges (Lady Bird) as Jared, Crowe and Kidman’s characters’ son. After being forcibly outed, Jared is given an ultimatum by his Baptist preacher father Marshall Eamons (Crowe) and his strict mum Nancy (Kidman) that he start gay conversion therapy or is cut off from his family and church.

The story follows Jared’s experience at the therapy facility, which is nothing short of horrific.

“I didn’t know these places existed so I was shocked when I read it,” Kidman admits. “I couldn’t believe that I had not been exposed to this and I am amazed at how many people are like me in not having any idea that they exist. And did you know that it’s still legal in 41 states in America?”

The subject of homosexual intolerance leads us to the hotly debated issue of gay marriage, finally legalised in Australia last year. “Of course, I was in full support of gay marriage. I am in full support of love who you love, and I have conducted my whole life that way,” she says. “I grew up in a family where that was just not a question. I was raised by very non-judgmental parents and so I wasn’t exposed to it in that regard.”

Boy Erased starring Nicole Kidman and Lucas Hedges

Kidman laughs easily and often. She makes an effort to put those around her at ease, as any actor and director with whom she’s worked will attest. “You know, I started going to Stranded when I was 16,” she offers. “Do you know what Stranded is?”

After telling her that I don’t, she explains, “Oh, it was a transsexual club. I learned a lot of my makeup and hair tricks there. Actually, I got a lot of my dance moves there, too. If you mention Stranded to a particular generation in Sydney, they know about it. At 12 o’clock they (the dancers) would come on,” she says, her voice escalating in excitement. “You know, I would do really, really great things at that age.”

At 51, she’s certainly continuing to do great things, and has two other projects coming out imminently. She plays the lead role in Destroyer, in which she completely disappears as a rough-around-the edges LA cop unearthing a case from her past, and a smaller role in Aquaman, as Queen of Atlantis.

“Destroyer was unbearably hard,” she groans. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done because it was really a hard place to exist in, mentally and physically.”

Given that Kidman often portrays tormented characters – in The Hours, Dogville, Rabbit Hole and most recently Big Little Lies, as an abused wife, for which she won a Primetime Emmy and a Golden Globe, and Lion, which brought her an Oscar nod – it’s difficult to imagine what her version of “unbearably hard” must look like.

“Well, it was her anger, and also, existing in that place of rage and shame, and at the same time, she’s a mother who committed terrible crimes against herself – human crimes against yourself and against the people she has been in relationships with.” Her performance has been compared to Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning serial killer in Monster (2003).

Does a role like this take a toll on her family, then, if it’s all-consuming? “It was weird,” she answers. “In terms of what artistically I am asking them to allow me to do, to let me go exist in a limbo place for a period of time, and as much as I came home on the weekends, I didn’t realise how much that character was going to affect me and seep in.

“It got to the point where I think Keith (husband Keith Urban) couldn’t wait for it to be over. I remember him saying, ‘Oh my God. Destroyer. It needs to end!’

“That’s interesting to hear from another artist but I’m glad I’ve done it.” She pauses. “And you know, it was a 90 per cent female crew.”

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban

The statistic might indicate that the #MeToo environment is making greater strides than many people realise.

On that ubiquitous subject, I ask her about recent reports that surfaced in which she stated that her marriage to a powerful man like Tom Cruise protected her from sexual harassment.

“Well, that was taken out of context. As I said, yes, I was married to a powerful man, which held some sort of protection through a very particular time in my life when I was here (in Hollywood), so that’s what I meant by that. But also, when I was 22, I was married and I had two kids.”

To recap her well-documented romantic life, she was famously married to Cruise from 1990 for 10 years, during which time they adopted Isabella, 25, and Connor, 23. She has been married to Urban since 2006, with whom she is raising their daughters: Sunday, 10, and Faith, 7, in Nashville.

The Kidman-Urban family often spend Christmas in Sydney and they certainly like to celebrate occasions. Urban recently posted a photo on his Instagram account of his favourite chocolate cake (courtesy of his wife and kids) to celebrate his 51st birthday, along with his tour bus decked out with balloons. Evidently, theirs is a marriage of genuine love and compassion.

“I am just lucky that I met that person at that time in my life, because we both met later in life and so we brought a lot to it,” she says.

Even with this in mind, it’s unusual to see a celebrity couple not only remain intact but enjoy each other. “We just got lucky. But I always say that I don’t just love Keith – I like him. And I think that is an enormous part of what makes a relationship work.”

Enjoying a particularly prolific time in her career, she just wrapped the second season of Big Little Lies, which she also executive produces along with Reese Witherspoon.

“It was unbelievable to go back and step right back into those characters,” she says, enthusiastically. “The great thing for us is that we’re all so close and now after the second series, we became even more deeply bonded. And that is so rare. Not only do we work well together – we play well together. We’d go out a lot (during the shoot) and there were a lot of dinners.”

She laughs. “You can imagine the subjects that come up. We share everything.”

With the addition of Meryl Streep to the series, playing Kidman’s mother-in-law, she says, “Meryl was a guiding light for me. She was a trailblazer as an actress, as a woman and as a mother.”

Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman on set of Big Little Lies 2

She will next play former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson in one of the most anticipated #MeToo-inspired movies (with the working title Fair and Balanced) about the downfall of Fox News chief Roger Ailes and the women who effected it. Coincidentally, Kidman’s longtime friend Naomi Watts will also be portraying Carlson in a different screen project.

“Yes, that’s true, but I’m only doing five days in a film supporting Charlize (Theron) and Margot (Robbie), so you will see a glimpse of Gretchen through me, but Naomi is doing a 10-hour series with Russell (Crowe) for Showtime (The Loudest Voice in the Room), so that is a far more in-depth look at her.”

Circling back to Boy Erased, Kidman admits she loved the Australian sensibility on set, working with Edgerton, Crowe and singer-songwriter Troye Sivan.

“Yes, I crossed paths with Troye during a couple of scenes, and being directed by Joel and married to Russell, the great thing was that we have our own language. We have a way of communicating that is not very flowery. It’s very direct and it’s very honest, which I love.”

Our conversation turns back to the great mystery
of how she met her current on-screen husband, Crowe.

“Well, I am sure he drank champagne out of my shoe! And even though he is like, ‘No, I didn’t do it!’ That is us.” She laughs.

“But I love him; I really do. I know him, I have a strong sense of who he is and he makes me laugh. He’s just a card.”