Nicole Kidman Reflects on Working With Ex-Husband Tom Cruise in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ in Rare Comment

Nicole Kidman reflected on her marriage to ex-husband Tom Cruise in a rare comment while discussing their 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut.

While speaking to the Los Angeles Times earlier this month, Nicole, 57, was asked if director Stanley Kubrick took inspiration from her and Tom’s real life romance for the film.

“I suppose he was mining it,” she said. “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.’”

Nicole continued, “Because one person could feel ganged up on. But he was aware of that and knew how to manage us.”

In addition to discussing how Stanley used their relationship to craft the film, Nicole also explained that she and Tom, 62, had their own ways of communicating with the director.

“There’s something about being a woman in that equation, too,” the Big Little Lies star said. “And Stanley liked women. He had a different relationship with Tom. They worked more closely together on his character.”

Tom and Nicole tied the knot in 1990 and divorced more than a decade later in 2001. The former couple share kids Isabella, 31, and Connor, 29, whom they adopted during their marriage.

Despite once being a high-profile couple, Nicole and Tom rarely speak about their past relationship. However, she previously said that Eyes Wide Shut included the “narrative” of their romance at the time. The film follows a doctor in Manhattan as he embarks on an odyssey after his wife admitted she was unfulfilled in their relationship.

“We were happily married through that,” Nicole 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.”

She continued, “We shot that for two years. We had two kids and were living in a trailer on the lot primarily, making spaghetti because Stanley liked to eat with us sometimes. We were working with the greatest filmmaker and learning about our lives and enjoying our lives on set.”

Nicole – who married husband Keith Urban in 2006 – has also kept quiet when it comes to her relationships with Isabella and Connor. However, she confirmed she was still in touch with her eldest children despite their close bonds with Tom.

“I have four children, so to stay in touch with them is very important. I’m definitely engaged in [texting] but I don’t let it rule my life,” Nicole – who also shares daughter Sunday, 15, and Faith, 13, with Keith, 56 – previously told DeJour magazine.

Meanwhile, Connor spoke about his relationship with Nicole while talking to Woman’s Day in 2014. “I don’t care what people say. I know that me and Mum are solid. I love her a lot,” he said at the time. “My family means everything. Yeah, I love my music, but the family comes before everything else.”