Nicole Kidman: Stanley Kubrick Had To Coax Me Into Sex Scenes With Tom Cruise
Just days before his death, prolific filmmaker Stanley Kubrick finished his final film, "Eyes Wide Shut," which starred then-married couple Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise.
Kidman recently opened up about the film and its role in her marriage to Cruise in a column she penned for The Hollywood Reporter.
The 45-year-old actress wrote about the steamy sex scenes in "Eyes Wide Shut" and said she had to work closely under Kubrick's guidance because she was nervous about the content.
"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," Kidman wrote. "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."
Kidman also discussed the role of the film in her marriage to Cruise, which ended in 2001, just two years after the release of "Eyes Wide Shut." Tabloid speculation at the time claimed the film had come between the couple and became the beginning of the end for their relationship.
Kidman denied that notion and remarked that the making of "Eyes Wide Shut" was actually a good time for her relationship, as she enjoyed working with her husband as two artists creating something beyond their own relationship.
"People thought that making the film was the beginning of the end of my marriage, but I don't really think it was," Kidman wrote. "Tom and I were close then, and it was very much the three of us. Onscreen, the husband and wife are at odds, and Stanley wanted to use our marriage as a supposed reality. That was Stanley: He used the movie as provocation, pretending it was our sex life - which we weren't oblivious to, but obviously it wasn't us. We both decided to dedicate ourselves to a great filmmaker and artist."
