“That fits the narrative that people came up with”: Nicole Kidman’s issues with the legacy of ‘Eyes Wide Shut’
In some ways, the production of Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 psychosexual drama Eyes Wide Shut is the most ideal example of tabloid fodder Hollywood has ever produced. The legendarily meticulous Kubrick had wanted to make it for decades, and filming dragged on for a staggering 400 days – the longest continuous movie shoot in history. The mad genius subsequently died six days after showing his final cut to the studio. Meanwhile, stars Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise – who were married in real life – were subject to endless speculation about the state of their marriage, as well as salacious gossip about the sex scenes in the movie. It led to a perfect storm of publicity, but in later years, Kidman revealed she has deep-rooted issues with the film’s legacy and the narrative created around it.
Kidman first met Cruise on the set of Tony Scott’s Days of Thunder in 1989, and after a whirlwind romance, they walked down the aisle on Christmas Eve in 1990. They adopted two children – Isabella and Connor – and the union lasted 11 years. However, by the time a spokesperson announced on February 5, 2001, that they had separated, and Cruise filed for divorce only two days later, rumours of the demise of their marriage had been doing the rounds for years.
Unfortunately for the famous couple, the production of Eyes Wide Shut wound up taking up a lot more real estate in their marriage than they could have anticipated. When they arrived in London in 1996 to begin shooting, Kubrick had told them they’d be there for six months. However, the film eventually took 15 long months to complete, thanks to Kubrick’s notorious perfectionism. At one point, the couple thought it was all over in January 1998 – but they were forced to return in May for extensive reshoots.
The film was marketed as an erotic thriller, which led to endless speculation about how much time the world’s most famous married couple would spend in the nude. In truth, though, it was actually a probing, uncomfortable deep dive into a failing marriage – and the press began to revel in the parallels between Kidman and Cruise in the film and real life. Did the movie contribute to the dissolution of their marriage? Were they miserable on-set at all times? Did they resent Kubrick for dragging them into a seemingly never-ending autopsy of their relationship? These narratives swam around the film, which made good money at the box office but polarised audiences and critics.
In 2020, though, Kidman spoke to New York Times Magazine and revealed she has always been uncomfortable with everything surrounding the film. She said it was a fallacy that her marriage was in trouble during the shoot and clarified that she and Cruise never fell out with Kubrick either. She said, “We loved working with him. 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.”
Kidman, who has rarely commented on her marriage to Cruise over the years, uncharacteristically went to bat for it during this interview. When asked if Eyes Wide Shut put a strain on it, she scoffed, “That fits the narrative that people came up with, but I definitely didn’t see it like that. We were happily married through that.” She even claimed they’d have fun after shooting intense and draining scenes by renting out a race track at three in the morning to zip around in go-karts.
Interestingly, though, despite passionately defending the experience and her marriage, Kidman ended with a quote inviting more questions than answers. The A Perfect Couple star mused, “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.”
