NICOLE KIDMAN On why she believes love is the greatest journey of all
Her career is on fire and life with Keith Urban and their kids is a dream come true. Now, the star opens up about her road to happiness
It’s just before midnight on New Year’s Eve in Nashville, Tennessee and Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are counting down the last seconds of 2018 in unison. With daughters, Sunday, 10, and Faith, 8, smiling by their side, Kidman wraps her arms around Urban’s neck and the pair ring in the new year with a kiss. That they happen to be on stage in front of 200,000 revelling music fans – gathered in Nashville’s Bicentennial Park for Urban’s rousing gig – is no matter. After 12 years of marriage, sparks still fly and they aren’t squandering a single joyful moment. “My connection and my love for him is so powerful,” says Kidman, 51, relaxed and down to earth over lunch earlier in the day. “The girls and I are so lucky to have the man that he is. And he is a man. There’s a lot of boys in this world, but Keith is a man.”
Since settling down with that man in America’s country music capital in 2006, Kidman has come to relish their quiet family life far from the Hollywood spotlight. “My roots are deeply embedded here,” says the Oscar winner, casual in jeans, a cosy pink jumper and very little makeup. While she travels the globe to make movies and is enjoying one of the most acclaimed years of her career (see box p48), Nashville is where her heart is. That grounding helps her take on ever-bigger challenges – like her new movie Destroyer, for which she transformed dramatically to play a rage-consumed, alcoholic cop. “This character is so far removed from me,” she says. That’s part of the appeal as an actor.”
At home, she’s a regular at their daughters’ school, where she reads books to the class, and she hosts many a play date. “Right now there are five kids over,” she says. “Our house is always full of kids. Sometimes we have eight kids over for dinner after school.” Kidman wouldn’t want it any other way. “When I was little, I hoped I would have children and have a partner –
HAPPILY EVER AFTER Taking to Instagram on June 26, 2018, Urban dedicated a sweet post to his beautiful wife: “12 years of celestial synergised soul dancing. Happy anniversary Babygirl!!! I love you SO much,” he wrote.
that’s always been my dream, I think, because of the way I grew up,” says the actress, who was born in Hawaii and raised in Sydney with her sister, Antonia, 48. “My parents were married for 50 years, and they were 50 good years, so that’s what I revere ... I’ve always had that deeply romantic heart, and I’ve always gone, ‘I want love first and foremost.’ If I have that then I feel safe in the world, I feel that I can give.”
Kidman wasn’t always this lucky. After her 10-year marriage to Tom Cruise fell apart in December 2000 when she was 33 (the exes are parents to Isabella, 26, and Connor, 24), she was left reeling. Ironically, her career reached new heights after the split, earning her accolades and awards for Moulin Rouge! and The Others in 2001, and a Best Actress Oscar in 2003 for The Hours. Kidman leaned on family and a close circle of friends to help navigate the more difficult days. “I have an enormous support team around me that’s unbelievably solid and very, very real.” But she was unsure if she’d ever find love again. “I hoped I would, but I didn’t know definitely,” she says. “Who does?”
But “destiny,” as she sometimes thinks of it, came calling. In early 2005, at the annual G’day LA gala that celebrates notable Australians, the actress met country singer Urban, who was born in New Zealand and grew up in Brisbane. They chatted only briefly that night but connected over the ensuing months. “We just kept talking on the phone,” Kidman says, recalling the moment she knew he was the one. “It was my [38th] birthday and he stood outside with gardenias at 5am on my stoop in New York,” she says. “That is when I went, ‘This is the man I hope
I get to marry.’ ” Urban took her to Woodstock, the site of the 1969 music festival, on a motorbike for a getaway (“My kind of guy!” she says), and she has never looked back. “It was pretty intense,” Kidman says. “I believed by that point he was the love of my life. Maybe that’s because I am deeply romantic, or I’m an actress, or I have strong faith as well but I just believed ‘Oh, OK, here he is.’ ”
Which is not to say they’re immune to life’s trials. Shortly after their wedding, Urban, who is sober and has spoken publicly about his past addiction issues, entered rehab. Kidman stood by him. It never occurred to her not to. “Real love happens not when everything is going well but when things are going badly,” she says. “It’s when human beings come together, if they’re going to, in a far deeper way. You’re then having to work together and the ‘together’ is what it’s about. Keith and I talk about that because that ultimately is the definition of marriage and union and commitment.” Likewise, Urban, 51, was there for Kidman during one of her darkest times, in 2014. “When my father died, Keith cancelled his concert – he was about to walk onstage – and he got on a plane [to Australia],” she says. “He said, ‘This is why you have me. You don’t have to go through this alone.’ He came back that night and I just fell into him.”
Kidman hopes the girls find strength from watching their parents’ partnership up close. “To see a union that is deep and real and loving, which is what Keith and I both grew up with, too, is always a
“I could sum up Nic as a wife, mother and human being in three words: she’s all heart!” —Keith Urban
good thing, I think,” she says. The two “prioritise” the family over just about everything else, and won’t consider a gig that would mean too much time apart. “At this stage in our lives, it’s what works for the family and what works for our own joy,” she says. “As Keith says, ‘I just want to be with you ... I choose you.’ And I choose him over everything and then the other stuff falls into place.” When Urban is on the road touring, it’s often with Kidman and the girls in tow, and he and the kids are mainstays on Kidman’s sets. Among Sunday and Faith’s good buddies are the children from the
Big Little Lies cast. “They’ve grown up with those kids because I had them on set around Monterey and I’m like ‘play dates, play dates!’ ” says Kidman, who invited her young co-stars to see Aquaman with the girls. “Those children have become like my own.”
In a perfect world, in fact, Kidman would have loved more kids with Urban. “We go, ‘Oh gosh, I wonder if we met when we were 25 then we could have had 10 of them!’ But Keith says, ‘Stop the wanting mind.’ It’s far better to be completely in love and satiated with what you’ve been given, what we’ve been given.”
It’s not lost on Kidman how lucky she is –and just how far she’s come. “I feel very safe now, in terms of just being who I am and [ knowing] what I stand up for, what I believe in and my artistic choices,” she says.
Kidman has high hopes for what she’d like to achieve in 2019: continue championing female directors and supporting women’s causes (she is a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador). Take a trip to Africa with Urban and the girls. And nurture her marriage. “Love is the greatest journey,” she says. “When you really embark on that deep journey together – get even closer, more intimate – it takes you places you’ve never dreamed you could be taken”
“I’ve always said it’s a long road, and if people stick with you, they’ll see your story. They’ll see what your truth is” —Nicole Kidman