Nicole Kidman does US Glamour (December '08)

 

Nicole Kidman: The A-List Activist

The Oscar-winning star of Australia unloads decades’ worth of revelations, ruminations—and so many useful life lessons, you’ll want to take notes.

Beneath Nicole Kidman’s unruffled exterior, there’s always been something clearly, unapologetically complicated.

We’ve seen a hint of it in her gritty, bravura performances, whether in her dramatic roles (she became Virginia Woolf in The Hours) or her comic turns (remember her wacky scheming in To Die For?). We’ve been treated to her startling-for-a-movie-star candor: In 2006, when her husband, country singer Keith Urban, entered rehab for alcohol addiction virtually on the heels of their honeymoon, she didn’t avoid discussing their ordeal; she said she hoped it would help other couples. And the intense work ethic—more than 30 movies over the course of almost two decades—is hardly the stuff of blithe serenity, especially since she’s kept up that hectic schedule while being a mom to Isabella, 16, and Connor, 13 (her children with ex-husband Tom Cruise), and now Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, five months.

It was really only a matter of time before the impassioned actress became an activist, too, as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). “We didn’t call her; she called us,” says Joan Libby Hawk, UNIFEM’s chief of public affairs. “And she said, ‘I’m in this for the long haul.’ There’s a level of passion that shows.” That passion was evident in her numerous visits to shelters for abused women in a range of countries, from Switzerland to Kosovo. When she meets victims at shelters, Kidman’s empathy is marked—and effective, say the women who have accompanied her. At a safe house for survivors of domestic violence in Kosovo two years ago, “she was so modest and close to the women that she made it easy for them to speak about what happened,” says the house’s director, Sakibe Doli.

Baz Luhrmann, who directed Kidman in her current film Australia and 2001’s Moulin Rouge!, has long seen the actress as both an “extreme professional” and “the most human friend…a true mother, a real person.” Indeed, when Glamour sat down with Kidman at her hotel in London, where she was in rehearsals for the film musical Nine, we met that “real person.”

GLAMOUR: Important things first: Who does Sunday Rose look like, you or Keith?
NICOLE KIDMAN: Keith! It’s fine by me, having a little Keith-ette. When he goes away, I can look at her and see him.

GLAMOUR: You’re almost swooning! Are you happier now than you’ve ever been?
NK: Yes. But “happy” isn’t an all-encompassing-enough word. I’m in a place of gratitude and humility. I don’t take any of it for granted. I touch wood every day. The journey of life—we all go through it: You have love, you lose love, you find new love. To have love again is a beautiful thing.

GLAMOUR: Is Keith here [in London]?
NK: He’s back and forth, finishing up his tour. But we have a thing where we’re not separated for more than a week.

GLAMOUR: That’s great. You once said, “Twelve days is too much.”
NK: We reduced it even more. I have reached a stage in my life when I want to be with the ones I love. I used to be willing to do two weeks. And that is too much now; my heart aches.

GLAMOUR: Are you more in touch with your needs now?
NK: Yes. I’ve given a lot to my work, and I’m not willing to give as much to that anymore. At this time in my life, I want to be giving to my relationships. And out of that, whatever work you do prospers because you have more to give. [Pauses.] There’s something very primal about giving birth. It puts you in a state of being very raw.

GLAMOUR: What do you mean?
NK: I can’t bear to be separated from Sunday Rose. That’s why I haven’t yet gotten a daytime nanny, but at some stage I probably will have one.

GLAMOUR: How was the birth?
NK: Keith was my rock during childbirth. I’d heard horror stories of 40 hours of labor, and I was sure that would be me, but I had a very easy labor. And through it all, Keith’s eyes gave me such strength.

GLAMOUR: And you gave him support during the initial crisis of your marriage: his months in rehab for alcohol dependency. What was that experience like?
NK: It brought us to our knees…. Addiction is very prevalent in our society, and it can be shattering to both people in the relationship. But working through it together was an extraordinary path. It’s very easy for a couple to experience joy together. But when you experience pain together, it can lead to such depth and such union. That is when you fuse…. As a couple, we are in a place of deep gratefulness. The experience gave us deep honesty—and greater love.

GLAMOUR: I have a feeling that this gratitude, and what you’ve learned about gaining closeness through surviving painful experiences, has something to do with your work with UNIFEM.
NK: The accumulation of experience gives you a debt in terms of compassion. I am very fortunate, and I feel dedicated to giving back to other women. Wherever I am now, I make sure I visit a women’s shelter. But I don’t want to do it in a frivolous way.

GLAMOUR: What has been the most touching experience?
NK: The way those women [in the shelter in Kosovo] told their stories—with such dignity, yet their lives were so ravaged. They’d been beaten, raped, ostracized. And they were so grateful to just have somebody to share their stories with.

GLAMOUR: You’ve shared too. You’ve been open about the pain of your divorce from Tom [Cruise].
NK: I’ve talked about it because so many women go through it. And my work with UNIFEM ties into it. If you take care of the woman in the family, the whole family prospers. But when the mother falters, the family falls apart…. My mother was the heartbeat of our family. She battled [and survived] breast cancer at a very early age, and our family fell apart [at the time]. I was devastated by the fear of losing someone I loved—we all were. This has colored what I do, not just with UNIFEM, but in supporting the fight against breast and ovarian cancers. [Kidman has helped raise research funds for and awareness about women’s reproductive cancers.]

GLAMOUR: It was your mother who first told you about UNIFEM, wasn’t it?
NK: Yes. She heard a radio program about the work they were doing in Cambodia, and she called me and said, “This organization sounds extraordinary, very proactive and nurturing.” That’s an important word. They’re not going in with guns blazing, thinking, We’re going to change everything, which is a lovely idea, but it doesn’t seem doable. They’re going in respecting the culture, working with the community. In a lot of places in Africa, particularly in war zones, women are frightened to cross a path to get food and water. They can be raped. There’s a violent atmosphere. So UNIFEM did this wonderful thing: They lit and monitored the paths. Logical, simple, step-by-step solutions: That’s how my brain works. Which is probably why I was drawn to UNIFEM.

GLAMOUR: You’re what you call a “very Aussie” girl, who’s now living in the country music capital, Nashville. Really, no L.A.?
NK: L.A.’s not a part of our life at all. I mean, my children are a huge part of my life, so we spend time in L.A. for the kids [who live there with Cruise], but I don’t have any kinds of roots there.

GLAMOUR: How do Connor and Isabella like their little sister, Sunday Rose?
NK: They’re very adoring of her. They’re used to having a little one around, because of Suri [Cruise’s daughter with Katie Holmes]. Bella is very maternal. Connor would like one of us to have a boy. He wants that boy. [Pauses.] Katie…? [Laughs.]

GLAMOUR: OK, the inevitable Tom questions. You were 23 and had barely arrived from Australia when you married one of the biggest movie stars in America and became an accomplished actress yourself. What was that like?
NK: I felt I became a star only by association. I didn’t think [the early movies] were very good, which is why I would always cower in the background. I thought, I don’t deserve to be here. We would go to the Oscars and I would think, I’m here to support him. I felt it was my job to put on a beautiful dress and be seen and not heard.

GLAMOUR: When Tom filed for divorce in 2001, you were, in your own words, “devastated.” You then spent years throwing yourself into your work.
NK: I went six years alone. I’m not saying it’s for everyone, but it’s better to be alone than in a lousy relationship. Work was my escape. I was existing more strongly in my creative world than in my own world.

GLAMOUR: What did you learn from that intense period?
NK: How to stand on my own two feet. I had to find my own identity, and my own reason for being here, and it couldn’t be because of another person.

GLAMOUR: So when you met Keith, what made you realize you were meant for each other? Did you figure it out early on?
NK: That [connection] was there from the beginning. It was like something was pulling us together. I’m just so protective of us. Am I hard to interview? [Laughs.]

GLAMOUR: No, not at all!
NK: I’m thinking he’s going to read this and go, “Whoa, what are you doing, Nicole?” I’m talking too much! But I’m trying to balance the two [privacy and inspiration] by sharing things, knowing that people are going to read this. And I’ve read things about other people and gone, “Ah, it’s so good to hear that!” Part of our job as human beings is to share our knowledge and share the things we’ve learned. So we can either save people from making the same mistakes, or give them hope.

GLAMOUR: What advice would you give to your younger self? If you could go back to the inadequate-feeling wife of the superstar, what would you tell her?
NK: Be kind to yourself.

GLAMOUR: What would you tell the young woman devastated by divorce?
NK: The sun always rises tomorrow, and through this shall come light.

GLAMOUR: And the woman who’d just accepted the Best Actress Oscar and then went home alone?
NK: Please enjoy this moment! Stop being so shy and insecure, and revel in it. Put your dress back on and go back to the Vanity Fair party!

GLAMOUR: You’re so good at giving advice on the basis of your life lessons; what can you tell our readers?
NK: As a woman now, I want to share things. I have girlfriends in their twenties, and I say, “Ask me anything. You can learn from the things I did wrong, and you can learn from the things you think I’m doing right. Take whatever you want and make it your own.” So: Have no regrets. Every relationship leads you to where you’re meant to be. Learn to be comfortable with being alone. Learn to be comfortable with saying no to people; we put everybody else before ourselves. Read great literature; don’t get all your information from TV. Define your moral code—nobody else is going to give you that. Find it yourself. Keep asking questions, keep challenging. You don’t have to conform. Rebellion creates character. And, as my mother always said to me, “Don’t let anyone break your spirit!”



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