20 Little-Known Details About The Notoriously Private Nicole Kidman
We've loved Nicole Kidman since the day she came on the scene in the indie movie hit, Flirting. As Biography reports, that was in 1991. It seems so long ago! It also seems like ages since she had that newsworthy relationship with Tom Cruise that ended in divorce. She has made a hell of a career for herself over the years and is still going strong in Hollywood.
She is known to be notoriously private, though, even refusing to talk about her divorce from Cruise. She keeps her personal life behind locked doors and even though we want to know more, there isn't a whole lot that she's willing to discuss in detail during interviews.
Kidman still remains an enigma to many and we are grateful that we get to see her on the silver screen from time to time. However, as much as she tries to keep her life as private as possible, we still manage to squeeze out some details about her fascinating life.
Check out these 20 little-known facts about the secretive and successful Nicole Kidman.
20 She Was Once In A Music Video
We're not really surprised to hear this considering Nicole had such a fiery and attractive look back in the day (and still does). You may not have known it, but Nicole made a music video with British pop star Robbie Williams. The star is huge in Britain and the song was called Somethin' Stupid. Williams took a song that was made famous by Frank and Nancy Sinatra and decided to make a more modern version of it, with Nicole. She didn't just appear in the video - she also sang! In 2001, the song topped the charts in the United Kingdom.
19 She Married Tom Cruise For Protection
Nicole definitely married Tom Cruise because she was madly in love with him. But being married to someone like Cruise also protected her. She never dealt with any of the harassment that brought about the #MeToo movement and that was partly because she was married, she reckons.
“I got married very young, but it definitely wasn't power for me - it was protection.
I married for love, but being married to an extremely powerful man kept me from being harassed," she said, as The Independent reports. "I would work, but I was still very much cocooned. So when I came out of it at 32, 33, it's almost like I had to grow up."
18 She Has Tried To Make Keith Urban Jealous
There was a lot of talk going around a while back that Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban were heading for divorce. The reason for that was due to pictures of Kidman kissing her Big Little Lies co-star Alexander Skarsgard on the mouth at the Emmy Awards. He won an award and she was congratulating him. "Keith had accused Nicole of disrespecting and humiliating him by kissing Alexander in front of everyone," Woman's Day reports. There was talk that she was just putting her husband in his place and reminding him that she could move on to someone else if need be, but it definitely caused a stir.
17 She Is Terrified Of Butterflies
No one would ever expect someone to be scared of butterflies but Kidman is. The fear is real and the technical term for it is lepidopterophobia, which is a fear of flying insects. During a fun interview about her Big Little Lies co-star, Reese Witherspoon had to guess whether or not Nicole was afraid of butterflies. "She's not afraid of butterflies," Reese said, as reported by Cosmopolitan. "I agree that she was probably called 'Legs.' Am I wrong?" She clearly was wrong, but who would have guessed it?
16 Her Party Years Were Very Much Under Control
Most young women are out having fun in their 20s, partying and having a great time with their friends. But Kidman married young and was a mother by the age of 25. “Because I was married at 23 years old, I wasn't going to parties or I wasn't going out a lot," she said, as Entertainment Tonight reports.
"I was pretty much at home. I had my first child at 25 and I was married.
I was in a family, so my sense of being in the world was I was working or I was at home."
15 She Is Best Friends With Naomi Watts
You wouldn't normally think to put these two Australian actresses together but they are actually very good friends. These two go way back, all the way to their teens, as Wreports.That's how long they have been friends.
This year, Watts discovered a large rat on her porch and she called her best friend to help her out, as Independent reports. “Hey @nicolekidman we have an early morning house guest,” she captioned the Instagram post, which showed a giant rat scurrying about her porch. “Can you come over and catch and release??!!” Kidman responded that she would be right over. That's what friends are for!
14 She's Trying To Respect The Marriage She's In
A lot of people can't understand why Nicole Kidman doesn't want to dish about her marriage to Tom. Her response to that is she just doesn't want to disrespect the marriage she is currently in and she doesn't want to disrespect Tom, either. As Independent reports, Nicole has said,
“I don't like discussing exes and all of that because I'm married," she said. "I'm very happily married. I have two little girls and I feel it's almost disrespectful to Tom and disrespectful to Keith, so I try to stay in the here and now."
That's a very noble response.
13 She's Taken A Role Too Far
Nicole went to great lengths to prepare for her role in the 2001 movie, Moulin Rouge. As reported by Show and Tell, Nicole confessed on the Graham Norton Show that she hurt herself a lot. "I hurt myself dancing in heels at three in the morning and I fell down stairs," Nicole said. "I then re-broke my rib getting into a corset." She even had to be in a wheelchair when filming some scenes of the movie while recovering from her injuries. Maybe she got some inspiration during her marriage to Tom Cruise because he always does his own stunts?
12 Tom Was The One That Discovered Her
You may have wondered how an Australian actress like Nicole Kidman got her big break. Sometimes it is a director or a producer that discovers a talent but in the case of Kidman, it was her future husband who discovered her.
Tom saw her in the film Dead Calm and he was instantly intrigued. He wanted to meet with her to talk about a movie, Days of Thunder. Before she knew it, Vanity Fair reports, Nicole was co-starring with him in the movie!
The whole experience sure changed her life, as she got her big break in Hollywood and scored a handsome husband, too.
11 She Was Drawn To Tom
Tom Cruise is certainly one of the most handsome men in Hollywood, even today considering the fact that he doesn't seem to age. But back in the day, he was quite the heartthrob.
“I remember being so nervous and seeing Tom Cruise drive up in a Porsche, I think it was,”
Nicole recalled their meeting, as reported by In Style. “He got out of the car and walked through and I was like, 'Ah.' My jaw dropped. Then I had to go in and audition in front of Tony Scott. Sweet Tony. [Producers] Don Simpson, Jerry Bruckheimer, Robert Towne and Tom. I was like, 'No way, I'm not going to get this.' They called that afternoon and I had the job.”
10 She Experienced Emotional Stress From One Of Her Films
Sometimes movies cause actors to become depressed or question themselves. This is especially the case when the roles are difficult. In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, Nicole speaks of how difficult it was to get into the head of her character, Isabel, in Portrait Of A Lady, because she was in an abusive relationship.
"I love the scene, or the way it was written, where Isabel says, 'Look what you're doing to me' - and it's like, it took us about 20 takes but we finally got there - where you almost feel like you are crazy, and then the beating of the head on the wall: it's the anger at yourself," Nicole said. "You know you're stuck and you can't get away."
9 It Took Keith Urban Four Months To Ask Her Out
Nicole Kidman has claimed that her husband, Keith Urban, did not fall for her instantly because it took him four months to even ask her out. “He didn't love me at first sight,” she told Ellen DeGeneres, as the Daily Mail reports.
“I'm like, 'You didn't love me at first sight, you didn't notice me,' and he's like, 'Yes, I did but I just didn't let on,' but we kind of met and then about four months later he called me.”
Ellen responded, “Four months later? That's really playing it cool to wait that long.”
8 They Have A "No-Device House"
It might surprise you to know that Nicole likes to detox from TV and technological devices. “We have periods at home where we don't turn on the TV and try to have a detox from it all,” Nicole told The Guardian.
“I can recommend that to anyone. Like everyone, I worry about all the anger that seems to be around. What do you do? In our case, we have some land and some animals.
I left home yesterday and my children were up in the tree house, with eight friends over. We have a no-devices house. Their friends can't bring devices over. The general rule is: play, hard core and outside.”
7 She Likes To Go To Church On Sundays
Nicole Kidman was raised as a Catholic and that was likely one of the things that caused a divorce between her and Tom since he's a scientologist. Now that she is married to Keith Urban, the couple regularly attends a church in Tennessee. “We go to Catholic church, or sometimes we will go to a gospel church for the music,” Nicole said, as Celebretainment reports.
“That singing and joy is so wonderful.”
It's a beautiful thing for her to share her religion with her family.
6 Her Relationship With Her Father
At a young age, Kidman was told by her father that he was an atheist. It was hard for her to comprehend as she had been raised a Catholic. “He was a very gentle man,” she said, as Celebretainment reports, “with a really strong social conscience. He told me he would still live by the Ten Commandments, but he was an atheist. And I said: 'No, I want you to believe in God!' It was difficult for a child. I still go church. I love the ritual. But that's me and my choice.”
5 Winning An Oscar Felt Lonely To Her
Winning an Oscar is something that most actors dream about and it was probably the same for Nicole Kidman. She won an Oscar for her role in The Hours. The win was bittersweet for her, however, because she won during a low point in her life. As Fox reports, Nicole said,
"Winning the Oscar was a turning point, but not in terms of my life as an actor, because it was incredibly validating, but it actually symbolized loneliness to me because I didn't have anyone to share it with at that stage in my life."
The time of her life she's referring to was in 2003, when Nicole had been split from Tom Cruise for about two years. She only married Keith in 2005.
4 Personal Struggle During Her Marriage With Tom
During their marriage, Tom and Nicole adopted two children, Connor and Isabella. Their choice for adoption may have had something to do with the fact that Kidman suffered at least one miscarriage during their marriage.
As Kidman told People, "I know the yearning. That yearning. It's a huge, aching yearning. And the loss!
The loss of a miscarriage is not talked about enough. That's massive grief to certain women. There's an enormous amount of pain and an enormous amount of joy on the other side of it." She added, "The flipside of going through so much yearning and pain to get there is the feeling of 'Ahhhh!' when you have the child."
3 She Had A Crush On Jimmy Fallon
During a visit to The Jimmy Fallon Show, Nicole told him that she had a crush on him. What? Apparently, Jimmy's friend, Rick, had told him that Nicole wanted him to co-star with her in the movie Bewitched and that Nicole wanted to meet with him at his apartment. As UPI reports, while Jimmy was telling Nicole this story, Nicole confessed,
"I just remember I liked you. Not now, I'm married now.
But Rick was like, 'Jimmy wants to meet you and you can go over to his apartment,' and I was single." Jimmy expressed surprise, asking, "Wait, what? What are you talking about? Could I have dated Nicole Kidman?"
2 Her Father Noticed The Important Things
A father can play a huge role in a daughter's life and can instill a sense of self-confidence in her if he treats her right. Nicole always remembers the important things her father taught her.
“One thing I loved, is that he never, ever noticed anything we were wearing. I could literally come down and have dyed my hair pink and he wouldn't comment. But he would always notice if you had told a funny story, or if you did something kind that helped someone out.”
Her father passed away in 2014 of a heart attack, but his beautiful lessons remain.
1 She Supports Her Friends Through And Through
Nicole is friends with Reese Witherspoon, who co-starred with her on Big Little Lies. Kidman believes in supporting her friend's achievements. She went out and purchased Reese's book, Whiskey In A Teacup and posted all about it on social media, writing, “Love this book, love this woman, and love those Betty-isms! #WhiskeyInATeacup” That's the best part about having great friends. You can always count on them for support in your life. Kidman is clearly proud of her friend's book, and she seems like a wonderful person to have in your corner.