Become a mother is not as easy as it thought, Nicole, is a mother after she adopted Isabella, 16 years old, and Connor, 14 yeas old, with her ex husband, Tom Cruise. But until she gave birth Sunday Rose Urban, with her husband Keith Urban, her motherhood totally change.
This Australian superstar Nicole Kidman reveals how the twin journeys of motherhood and marriage have changed her.
Q: You didn’t give birth until your 40s. How do you feel now?
A: It’s bittersweet. I want to be around to see Sunday Rose’s 21st birthday and I want to see her get married.
My relationship with death used to be far more ambivalent, whereas now it feels much more important for me to stay in the world.
That’s why, in the past, I was able to jump out of planes and take more risks. When you have children at the age of 25, you still have that “whatever will be, will be” attitude.
It’s such a different way of parenting. Bella and Connor had a very free and easy childhood, probably because they had parents who were very young, and were always flying off around the world and were pretty easygoing, too.
Q: How have you changed since Sunday Rose came along?
A: Well, I’ve been a mother for many years, of course, but this was the first time I’d actually given birth and so, yes, it did change me.
I feel there’s something that happens when you give birth that is very primal and which men will never understand, but women who have done it all do.
I don’t know how to describe it, but something in your body changes, there’s a sort of seismic shift in your cells, and you’re much rawer and more open than you used to be.
That’s not to take away from people who never give birth, because I think you can still have that experience in a different sort of way if you try to, but for me, the birthing experience altered my whole being.
Q: Your husband Keith is sober now but has had his battles with alcohol. What was that like?
A: We were thrown into his alcohol problems three months into the marriage and that was big (Keith was admitted to rehab).
We became the closest we could become because we had to bare our souls.
We did 10 years of marriage in just three months. When the addiction controls someone’s life, it’s terrifying. But there is hope, and we work on it every day.
Q: How much pressure do you feel to achieve box-office success?
A: It’s lovely to be paid well for what you do. Obviously, for the smaller films you don’t get anything like the big ones, but I’m there for the long haul.
I’ll do theatre, small films and occasionally I’ll do a big film. It’s wonderful to have financial rewards, but I’m lucky enough that I can just work on the things that I want to do.
Q: What was it like working in the outback on Australia with director Baz Luhrmann, after working with him on Moulin Rouge?
A: I was so happy to be in Australia. I was there for months and it’s the film I dreamed of making when I was a little girl, as it has a magical quality to it.
It really does live up to my expectations because I wanted to make a film that was deeply romantic.
Q: Do you like watching yourself?
A: No, I can’t look at this movie and be proud of what I’ve done.
I sat there and asked Keith, “Am I any good in this movie?”
I thought Brandon Walters (Kidman’s 13-year-old Aboriginal co-star) and Hugh Jackman were wonderful, but I just can’t connect to it emotionally. I don’t usually watch my films.
Q: After you filmed Australia, you didn’t want to work for a while. Why?
A: I was in Tennessee (the couple moved there to raise their family), and I just felt I wanted to hang out. It was more my own laziness than anything.
Q: How do you find living in Tennessee?
A: I Love it. We lead a very easy, simple life there, and that suits me much better these days.
As I get older, I have a real need to be around nature. I need to get up in the morning, see the trees, and be able to walk in the fresh air.
There’s a silence that comes with nature that I enjoy and which I find very healing. I need the rural life.
Q: You’ve talked about how different your life would be if you weren’t light-skinned. What did you mean?
A: When you’re in Australia, you spend a lot of time inside if you’re fair-skinned because you burn.
My mum would keep me indoors, and I would read books as I wasn’t able to go to the beach very often. I always felt like I wasn’t the cool girl at school.
Q: What film made the most impression when you were growing up?
A: I saw Gone With The Wind about 20 times. There was a cinema down the road from us that used to show old films, and I would wag school to go there.
I’d miss a day and then the next morning, I’d go in and say, “Oooh, I had such a sore throat”, but really I was sitting in the cinema all day.
I say, let’s live healthier everyday, eat healthier than yesterday, walk more tomorrow. So we can attend to our grand daughter and grand son wedding.
