Nicole Kidman Remembers Working With Ex-Husband Tom Cruise in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’: ‘We Improvised’

More than two decades after appearing in Eyes Wide Shut, Nicole Kidman reflected on what it was like working with ex-husband Tom Cruise in the film. The pair were married from 1990 to 2001.

Nicole, 57, revealed that there was one scene in Stanley Kubrick’s psychological drama that took a very long time to film.

“It was the scene with Tom and I where I start by smoking the spliff in bed and where I laugh and deliver the long monologue,” she told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published on July 16. “That took many weeks. A lot of that was rehearsing in the bedroom and then him not liking what we’d done. So we ended up reworking it, constructing it as we went along. There was no need to rush. Stanley would never go over budget. What he bought was time.”

The Big Little Lies actress went on to describe how the scene evolved under Kubrick’s guidance.

“Just a lot of talking. When Tom and I first started with Stanley, it was at his home, and we didn’t even go over to the sets at Pinewood [Studios]. Six, eight weeks passed, and we’re wondering, ‘Are we ever going to start?’ And we just wouldn’t start,” she explained. “We were getting comfortable with each other, comfortable enough to throw out ideas. For that scene, we improvised the beginning of it through the rehearsals.”

Nicole was also asked about whether or not she felt like Kubrick was looking to her marriage with Tom for inspiration when it came to the characters’ storylines.

“I suppose he was mining it. 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,” the Oscar winner admitted. “I do remember him saying, ‘Triangles are hard. You have to tread carefully when it’s a triangle.’ Because one person could feel ganged up on. But he was aware of that and knew how to manage us.”

In January, Nicole opened up about the aftermath of her split from Tom in the public eye.

“I was struggling with things in my personal life, yet my professional life was going so well,” she said in the book 50 Oscar Nights: Iconic Stars & Filmmakers on Their Career-Defining Wins. “That’s what happens, right?”

In 2003, she won her first Oscar for playing Virginia Woolf in The Hours. She began crying during her acceptance speech and was played off by music before she got to finish.

“I went home and ended up ordering takeout and eating it on the floor of the Beverly Hills Hotel,” Nicole recalled. “I sat on the floor of the hotel eating French fries and a burger with my family and went to bed. That’s when it hit me. I went, I need to find my love; I need a love in my life. Because this is supposed to be when you go, ‘This is ours.’”

“I went to bed alone; I was in bed before midnight. If I ever won again, I’m telling you, I’d be out for 24 hours,” she added.

Nicole went on to marry Keith Urban in 2006. They welcomed daughters Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret together. The Being the Ricardos actress also shares older kids Isabella and Connor with Tom.