-> 

v

“I think each role takes a little from you and circles around you for the rest of your life. I don’t think you ever abandon any of them.” One of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood with a net worth of $130 million, Nicole Kidman is also among the most beautiful leading ladies in the business. She rose to fame in the 1990s opposite Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder (1990) and gained widespread recognition for her stellar work in Far and Away (1992), Batman Forever (1995), To Die For (1995), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Going on to earn several awards for her performances in Moulin Rouge! (2001) and The Hours (2002), she also snagged Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor when she married Cruise in 1990.

 -> 

v

After a decade in the spotlight, Kidman surprised everyone when she divorced Cruise in 2001 and embarked on a new journey in Hollywood with credits in The Others (2001), Cold Mountain (2003), Dogville (2003), Australia (2008), and The Paperboy (2012). She found love a second time in 2006 with musician Keith Urban and has settled down for her happily ever after with Urban and her four children! With her most recent credits including The Beguiled (2017), Boy Erased (2018), and Destroyer (2018), let’s take a closer look at Kidman’s impressive career and life outside the spotlight!

Early Life and Career

“Life has got all those twists and turns. You’ve got to hold on tight and off you go.” Nicole Mary Kidman was born on June 20, 1967, in Honolulu, Hawaii to an Australian nursing instructor and an Australian clinical psychologist and author. Her parents were stationed in Hawaii on student visas since her father was a graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. When she was four years old, her family relocated to their native Sydney, Australia where Kidman and her younger sister enjoyed a happy childhood. Kidman took dance lessons and showed a natural talent for acting at an early age, which blossomed after she saw Margaret Hamilton’s performance as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz.

 -> 

v

For Kidman, acting was a way to manage her shyness. “I am very shy—really shy—I even had a stutter as a kid, which I slowly got over, but I still regress into that shyness,” she says. “So, I don’t like walking into a crowded restaurant by myself; I don’t like going to a party by myself.”

Working through her shyness with acting, Kidman studied at the Phillip Street Theatre in Sydney and later attended the Australian Theatre for Young People, which introduced her to drama and mime. In 1983, the 16-year-old Kidman made her film debut in Bush Christmas (1983) and landed a supporting role in the popular television series Five Mile Creek (1983). Over the next few years, she honed her talents in Australian television and film before venturing to Hollywood where she joined her then-boyfriend, Tom Cruise, in Days of Thunder (1990). The film marked Kidman’s American debut and made her a household name as it was one of the highest grossing films of the year.

 -> 

v

Throughout the 1990s, Kidman’s career flourished with credits in Batman Forever (1995), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), The Peacemaker (1997), Practical Magic (1998), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999), the latter of which cast her opposite her then-husband, Cruise. She stunned audiences and critics alike with her performance in Moulin Rouge! (2001) and became a hot topic in the tabloids when she filed for divorce from Cruise in 2001 on the heels of her starring role in The Others (2001), which earned her several award nominations.

Newly single, Kidman tackled bigger projects like The Hours (2002), Dogville (2003), The Human Stain (2003), and Cold Mountain (2003) before enjoying even greater success in The Stepford Wives (2004). Coincidentally, she found love a second time with country music singer Keith Urban in 2005, whom she married in June 2006. “We didn’t really know each other—we got to know each other during our marriage,” Kidman said of their whirlwind romance. That romance blossomed again in 2008 when Kidman and Urban welcomed their daughter, Sunday Rose, into the world. They added to their family in 2010 with the birth of their daughter, Faith Margaret, via gestational surrogacy.

 -> 

v

Recent Projects and Relationships

“It’s a very brave thing to fall in love. You have to be willing to trust somebody else with your whole being, and that’s very difficult, really difficult and very brave.” Since expanding her role at home as a wife and mother, Kidman has gracefully balanced her life and career in and out of the spotlight. She focused more on biographical and independent projects in the mid-2010s but enjoyed a resurgence in her career in 2016 when she starred in Lion, which earned her numerous award nominations. She returned to television in Big Little Lies in 2017 and earned a Primetime Emmy Award for her performance as well as a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series as a producer. She also took home a Golden Globe Critics Choice Award and a SAG Award!

Over the last few years, Kidman has been unstoppable with credits in Destroyer (2018), Boy Erased (2018) and Aquaman (2018). In 2019, she’s set to star in The Goldfinch and Fair and Balanced as well as in the HBO television series, The Undoing. Apart from that, the 51-year-old Kidman stays busy running her own production company, Blossom Films, and enjoying life at home with her husband and children. So, what does that mean for her future?

 -> 

v

Kidman isn’t worried about what may or may not happen. “I’m not sure what the future holds but I do know that I’m going to be positive and not wake up feeling desperate,” she says. “As my dad said, ‘Nic, it is what it is, it’s not what it should have been, not what it could have been, it is what it is.’” With her films grossing over $1 billion worldwide and earning her a cool $130 million net worth, we can’t imagine Kidman has much to worry about in terms of fortune and fame—and to top it off she snagged one of country music’s hottest men! How’s that for luck from the Land Down Under!