Speaking with Interview magazine on his two-year experience working with renowned director Stanley Kubrick on the controversial 90s film Eyes Wide Shut, Cruise avoided anything Kidman-related, only mentioning her twice and with no reference to the fact that the two were married at the time.
“We talked about the female lead and I said, ‘Listen, I don’t know if you’ve seen Nicole Kidman’s work, but you’ve really got to look into her. She’s a great actress.’ And we kind of talked about the wife, and Nicole playing that character,” Cruise explains.
The film's director, Stanley Kubrick, who died before it was released, is being honoured in an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
On the flip side, Nicole openly discussed her and Tom's marriage and involvement in the film with The Hollywood Reporter, explaining that “People thought that making the film was the beginning of the end of my marriage - but I don't really think it was… Tom and I were close then, and it was very much the three of us.”
In regards to the explicit sex scenes prevalent throughout Eyes Wide Shut, Nicole admitted that “Stanley had to coax me into some of the sexuality in the film in the beginning, but we shot things that were a lot more extreme that didn't end up in the movie. I did feel safe - I never felt it was exploitive or unintelligent. He was very different with women than he was with men. He has daughters, so he was very paternal with me.”
