1967-present
Latest News: Nicole Kidman Stars in Thriller Babygirl
Nicole Kidman revealed she went to “an area I’d never been” for her role in the upcoming erotic thriller Babygirl.
In theaters on Christmas Day, the movie stars Kidman, 57, as Romy, a CEO who begins an affair with her much younger intern Samuel, played by Harris Dickinson. Because of the steamy subject matter, Kidman said the part required her to put an “enormous amount of trust” in both co-star Dickinson, 28, and director Halina Reijn. She described their near-constant communication with one another during a recent panel discussion of the film in Los Angeles.
“There’s a sort of a jump off the cliff thing where you go, okay, I’m just going to abandon everything and explore this with the people that I trust in a genre that is already set, but hopefully, we can explore new territory and especially with the female at the helm,” Kidman said, according to People.
Kidman has already drawn praise for Babygirl, winning Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival following the film's premiere in September.
Who Is Nicole Kidman?
Nicole Kidman is an acclaimed movie and TV actor known for her Academy Award-winning performance as Virginia Woolf in the 2002 movie The Hours and other projects such as the movies Moulin Rouge! (2001), Lion (2016), and the HBO series Big Little Lies. Born in Hawaii to Australian parents, Kidman rose to stardom in the early 1990s with movies including Days of Thunder (1990) and Billy Bathgate (1991). She was married to screen heartthrob Tom Cruise from 1990 to 2001 before her second marriage to musician Keith Urban in 2006. Kidman stars in the upcoming 2024 thriller movie Babygirl.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Nicole Mary Kidman
BORN: June 20, 1967
BIRTHPLACE: Honolulu, Hawaii
SPOUSES: Tom Cruise (1990-2001) and Keith Urban (m. 2006)
CHILDREN: Isabella, Connor, Sunday, Faith
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Gemini
Young Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on June 20, 1967. Her parents were Antony Kidman, a biochemist and clinical psychologist, and Janelle Ann Kidman, a nursing instructor. The actor has a younger sister, Antonia, who was born in 1970.
At the time of Nicole’s birth, Antony and Janelle, both Australian citizens, lived in the U.S. on student visas. As a result, Nicole holds dual citizenship in both countries. The family briefly moved to Washington, D.C., before eventually returning home to settle in Sydney, Australia, when Nicole was 4.
Before she became one of Hollywood’s most recognizable stars, Kidman battled insecurities over her height and appearance growing up. By the time she was 13 years old, she was shy of her adult height of 5 feet, 11 inches. “I would get teased, and it wasn’t kind,” she said in the TV docuseries In Vogue: The 90s.
Additionally, Kidman was sometimes forced to stay inside during heavily sunny conditions because of her pale skin. In these moments, she often took solace in reading, which helped develop her love of storytelling and interest in acting. She attended North Sydney Girls High School but ultimately dropped out to pursue her already promising on-camera career.
Movies and TV Shows
Kidman attended a local theater group as a schoolgirl and, encouraged by director Jane Campion, made a notable film debut in Bush Christmas (1983). She also appeared in the Australian crime comedy BMX Bandits that same year.
Kidman met one of her best friends, actor Naomi Watts, around this time. The two were at an open call for a bathing suit ad and later worked together on the 1991 film Flirting.
While she had already expanded her reel in her home country, Kidman was primed for international stardom by the late 1980s.
Breakthrough: Days of Thunder, Practical Magic, and More
Kidman’s breakthrough came with the thriller Dead Calm (1989) and the sports drama Days of Thunder (1990). In the latter, she plays a neurosurgeon who begins a romantic relationship with an upstart NASCAR driver, played by Tom Cruise. Although the movie received mixed reviews, it proved Kidman belonged in big-budget studio projects and has since become a cult classic.
More success for Kidman followed with Billy Bathgate (1991), To Die For (1995), Practical Magic (1998), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999), in which she again co-starred with Cruise. By this time, she was on her way to becoming an Academy Award contender.
Awards for Moulin Rouge! and The Hours
With the start of the new millennium, Kidman’s career reached new heights. She won a Golden Globe for portraying a Parisian singer and courtesan in Baz Luhrmann’s musical extravaganza Moulin Rouge! (2001). Kidman wowed critics and audiences alike the following year with her performance in The Hours (2002), playing famed writer Virginia Woolf. She received several major honors for her work, including her first and only Academy Award win for Best Actress.
Working with acclaimed director Anthony Minghella, Kidman starred in the Civil War epic Cold Mountain (2003) with Jude Law and Renee Zellweger. She also took on less mainstream projects, working with director Lars von Trier on the starkly rendered Dogville (2004).
Though more known for her dramatic work, Kidman also tried her hand at comedy in The Stepford Wives (2004), with Matthew Broderick and Bette Midler, and Bewitched (2005), inspired by the classic TV sitcom and starring Will Ferrell. In 2006, she lent her voice to the lighthearted animated film Happy Feet, but she also returned to a more serious role that year with her portrayal of legendary photographer Diane Arbus in Fur.
Reuniting with director Luhrmann, Kidman starred in the epic drama Australia (2008) with Hugh Jackman. She also appeared as a gorgeous screen icon in the 2009 movie musical Nine—based on the Broadway smash hit—with Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Kate Hudson, Penelope Cruz, and Judi Dench, among others.
Additional Oscar Nominations
Kidman continued to work on an interesting mix of film projects. In 2010, she co-starred with Aaron Eckhart in the independent drama Rabbit Hole, which received glowing reviews and a third Oscar nomination.
Then, in 2012, Kidman raised eyebrows for her unusual scenes in The Paperboy with Zac Efron and John Cusack. She co-starred with Clive Owen in the HBO television film Hemingway & Gellhorn. Kidman played journalist Martha Gellhorn, the third wife of Ernest Hemingway.
Portraying another famous real-life personality, she took the lead role in 2014’s Grace of Monaco, an Emmy-nominated film about the life of actress Grace Kelly.
In 2015, Kidman appeared in several film projects. She starred in the Australian film Strangerland, which is about a family in crisis after a terrible dust storm. That same year, she appeared as real-life adventurer and British spy Gertrude Bell, alongside James Franco and Robert Pattinson, in Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert.
After co-starring with Jason Bateman in The Family Fang, which was showcased at the Toronto International Film Festival, Kidman next appeared in the remake Secret in Their Eyes as the supervisor of an investigative team. The terse police thriller also stars Julia Roberts and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
In 2016, Kidman delivered a moving performance as an Australian woman who adopts a lost Indian boy in Lion, earning Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for her performance.
Emmys for Big Little Lies
The following year, the actress garnered more acclaim for her performance in the HBO series Big Little Lies. Along with nabbing an Emmy for her role as Celeste Wright, she claimed a second producer award, followed by a Golden Globe win for Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television. Kidman returned for seven episodes of the second season in 2019 alongside series newcomer Meryl Streep.
In 2018, Kidman starred in Destroyer as a Los Angeles police officer still reeling from her undercover work with a criminal gang two decades earlier and as Queen Atlanna in the superhero flick Aquaman. A year later, she portrayed former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson in Bombshell—about the fall of the network’s former chief, Roger Ailes, and also starring Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly—and added a role in the crime thriller The Goldfinch.
In 2021, she led the ensemble cast of the Hulu limited series Nine Perfect Strangers, which also starred Melissa McCarthy and Michael Shannon. That same year, Kidman received acclaim for portraying legendary comedian and actor Lucille Ball in the biographical movie Being the Ricardos. She won her sixth Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Motion Picture and received her fifth career Academy Award nomination.
Babygirl and Recent Projects
Kidman, now 57, remains one of the coveted performers on the big and small screen. Her recent films include the 2022 Viking epic The Northman, the 2023 sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and the 2024 Netflix romantic comedy A Family Affair, starring Zac Efron. She also appeared in the streamer's 2024 limited crime mystery series A Perfect Couple.
In September 2024, Kidman won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for the erotic thriller Babygirl. In it, her CEO character has an affair with a young intern played by Harris Dickinson. The film will be released theatrically on December 25.
Marriage to Tom Cruise
Only months after meeting Cruise on the set of their film Days of Thunder, Kidman married the actor in December 1990. “He basically swept me off my feet," Kidman said in a 2002 interview with Vanity Fair. “I fell madly, passionately in love. And as happens when you fall in love, my whole plan in terms of what I wanted for my life—I was like, ‘Forget it. This is it.’ I was consumed by it, willingly.”
The pair continued to work together onscreen—starring in the 1992 movie Far and Away and, later in the decade, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut—and became one of the most recognizable couples in Hollywood.
Kidman and Cruise adopted two children: daughter Isabella in December 1992 and son Connor in January 1995. Kidman has revealed the former couple’s struggle to have biological children; she experienced an ectopic pregnancy at age 23 and also suffered a miscarriage in 2001.
In February of that year, a representative for the couple announced they had amicably separated because of the “difficulties inherent in divergent careers which constantly kept them apart.” Two days later, Cruise filed for divorce and cited irreconcilable differences.
Kidman also dated and became engaged to musician Lenny Kravitz in 2003, but they lasted only a few months. However, the actor would soon find love with another music star.
Husband Keith Urban and Children
Kidman married country music singer Keith Urban on June 25, 2006 in Sydney, Australia. Guests included other Australian stars such as Russell Crowe, Jackman and Watts.
The pair met at a gala in January 2005. Urban said their connection came at a pivotal time in his life, as the singer struggled with sobriety. “It was like the ultimate fork in the road moment in my life, and it was literally like you either get this right now or you are never, ever gonna get it right. This is your one shot,” Urban told the Armchair Expert podcast. A few months after their marriage, Kidman supported Urban as he decided to enter a rehabilitation facility.
The couple appeared to be devoted to each other throughout the crisis and seemed to emerge from it stronger than ever. Urban revealed the early days of their relationship inspired his 2016 song “The Fighter,” a collaboration with Carrie Underwood.
In addition to her adopted children with Cruise, Kidman has welcomed two biological daughters with Urban: Sunday Rose in July 2008 and Faith Margaret in December 2010.
Philanthropy
Kidman has been a vocal supporter of numerous charitable causes, including cancer research. When she was 17, her mother, Janelle, was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent chemotherapy and radiation. Kidman took care of her mother during this time, even taking a massage course to help with her rehabilitation. “I think that has affected me. I was in my late teens, and that impact has imprinted on me in a way I will never forget,” Kidman said.
In 2023, Kidman and husband Urban made a “generous financial gift” to the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, Tennessee, to support clinical trials dedicated to finding new and better treatments for the disease.
Kidman remained close to her mother until Janelle’s death in September 2024. Her father, Antony, died in September 2014.
For nearly two decades, Kidman has served as a Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Development Fund for Women, or UNIFEM. The program promotes gender equality and women’s empowerment and fights for women’s economic rights and security. She is also an ambassador for the humanitarian aid organization UNICEF.
Net Worth
As of August 2024, Celebrity Net Worth estimates Kidman’s total fortune at around $250 million. During her career, she has made more than $350 million just from acting salaries.
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