Nicole Kidman says she’s in Australia ‘primarily to take care of my mother’

Nicole Kidman has said she’s staying in Australia “primarily to take care” of her beloved mother, Janelle, who is 81.

Nicole Kidman has revealed she’s in Australia “primarily to take care” of her beloved mother, Janelle.

The 54-year-old Australian actress, who arrived in Sydney in December for the local premiere of Being the Ricardos, has remained in her native country over the past few weeks.

In an interview with the Fresh Air podcast on Wednesday, the Oscar-winner commented on how the Omicron variant of Covid-19 was “running wild in Australia”.

“[And] we’re down here primarily to take care of my mother and to have her surrounded by her grandchildren,” Kidman said.

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Nicole Kidman and her mother, Janelle.

The Big Little Lies actress said she took her mum to the Art Gallery of NSW on Tuesday after hours, adding it was “soothing balm”.

“Luckily yesterday, even though Omicron is raging through this country, we were able to take her into the gallery after hours and show her the Matisse exhibit, which coming from a mother who’s raised me in the arts, it was soothing balm. Matisse was soothing balm last night,” Kidman said.

Janelle, 81, attended the red carpet premiere of Kidman’s latest blockbuster Being the Ricardos – for which she won the Golden Globe this week for Best Actress – on December 15.

Kidman hugs her mum Janelle at the Being the Ricardos Sydney premiere. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The pair have spent some much-needed family time together over the Christmas, New Year break, after having not seen each other for eight months during the height of the pandemic in 2020.

“I’m at the place where I’m being given the chance to view the world, because of how close we are, my mum is giving me the chance to view the world through an 81-year-old woman’s eyes,” Kidman explained later in the interview.

“That is so beneficial right now, because she’s so cognisant. She has every brain faculty available, so she hasn’t lost anything. She hasn’t lost any memory, which is fascinating, and she’s extremely bright.

Kidman and Janelle share a close relationship.

“She’s giving me access, because she’s also very direct and very honest, and so I’m getting access to the world through her eyes, my mother’s eyes, so therefore a part of me almost at 80.”

Janelle suffered health concerns in 2016 when she was taken to a Sydney hospital after a suspected heart scare.

It came just two years after her husband, Dr Antony Kidman, died of a heart attack inside a Singapore restaurant in 2014.

Seven months later, Janelle’s former son-in-law Angus Hawley – who was Antonia Kidman’s ex-husband – died of a suspected heart attack in New York.