For Nicole Kidman, the Dec. 12 LA premiere of her new blockbuster, Aquaman, was much more than a professional milestone. “It was really fun because my kids are inside, and this is the first premiere they’ve ever been to,” Nicole, 51, revealed in a new interview with E! News. But Sunday, 10, and Faith, 8, were nowhere to be seen on the red carpet, thanks to Nicole and her country star husband Keith Urban’s first priority: shielding their daughters from fame.

“The idea of not being able to protect my child — or have my child not have me there when she needs me — is devastating,” Nicole has said. “And on the flip side, there’s this incredible joy of having this little being who is so reliant on you and who looks up to you and who you are there in the world for.”

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She had a stark reminder of this delicate parental balancing act while playing an alcoholic cop in another new film, Destroyer. “They are used to having an actress-mother and seeing me explore things,” she previously shared to the Daily Sabah. She has also said, “But I would take [my character] home and my children were shocked, particularly with the way I looked. They’re like, ‘You’re our granny now.’”

To keep such dissonant moments to a minimum, Nicole makes their lives as normal as possible. “We live in Nashville, not LA, and we live there for a reason,” she has revealed. “I like the peacefulness — being able to step into the celebrity life for a moment when I need to, and then back out to all the real day-to-day things.”

And to guard them from the glare of the spotlight, she adheres to strict guidelines. “We have periods where we don’t turn on the TV and try to detox from it all. [And] we have a no-devices house,” Nicole said in a previous interview with The Guardian. “The general rule is: play, hard-core and outside. Yesterday my children were up in the tree house, with eight friends over!”

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These are lessons Nicole learned with Bella, 26, and Connor, 23, her adopted kids with ex-husband Tom Cruise. “I have to protect all those relationships,” she previously said to Australia’s Who magazine. “I know 150 percent that I would give up my life for my children, because it’s what my purpose is.”

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