Nicole Kidman reminisces about the filming of Eyes Wide Shut and wonders if director Stanley Kubrick drew inspiration from her and ex-husband Tom 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.”
Furthermore, as the 57-year-old—who is parents to 29-year-old Connor and 31-year-old Isabella with the Top Gun star—explained, she and her former partner had a unique relationship 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.”
While Kidman has rarely discussed her connection with the Mission Impossible star in the past, she has acknowledged that the movie’s “narrative,” which centres on themes of power and betrayal, is a true account of her and the actor’s affair.
“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.”