'I’m not sure anyone would say that to a man,' Kidman told a reporter.
Nicole Kidman won't entertain questions about her ex. In an interview with The Guardian, the 54-year-old actress shuts down a question about her ex-husband, Tom Cruise, while discussing her new film, Being the Ricardos. Kidman and Cruise were married from 1990 to 2001, and are parents to two kids, Isabella, 29, and Connor, 26.
The topic comes up as Kidman discusses the real-life romance between Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, whom she and Javier Bardem portray in the new Aaron Sorkin movie about the pair's relationship and show, I Love Lucy.
"It’s about a creative and romantic relationship that doesn’t work out," she says of Being the Ricardos. "But from it come some extraordinary things. And I love that. I love that it’s not a happy ending. This film says you can make an extraordinary relationship thrive and leave remnants of it that exist forever. Yeah, that’s really gorgeous."
"You can’t make people behave how you want them to, and sometimes you’re going to fall in love with someone who isn’t going to be the person you spend the rest of your life with," Kidman continues. "And I think that’s all very relatable. You may have kids with them. You may not, but they were very much in love."
The interviewer responds by questioning if Kidman's feelings about Ball and Arnaz mirror that of her feelings about her ex, something she quickly denies.
"Oh, my God, no, no. Absolutely not. No. I mean, that’s, honestly, so long ago that that isn’t in this equation. So no," Kidman says. "And I would ask not to be pigeonholed that way, either. It feels to me almost sexist, because I’m not sure anyone would say that to a man. And at some point, you go, 'Give me my life. In its own right.'"
Following her relationship with Cruise, Kidman tied the knot with Keith Urban. The pair, who married in 2006, shares two daughters, Sunday, 13, and Faith, 11. Of her youngest children, Kidman largely refuses to comment.
"I have to really protect them," she explains. "I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut. [Boundaries are] something I’ve struggled with in the past."
She does offer one tidbit, though, revealing of Sunday, "I have a 13-year-old who wants to be a director -- she’s really interested in comedy."
The interviewer later remarks that Kidman comes off as "a real person" despite her fame, which the actress credits to her family.
"I don’t live that life," Kidman says of Hollywood fame and glamour. "I’m deeply embedded in a family, in a very deep marriage. I’m parenting children. I’m a daughter. Those are the primary things."
"And yes, I have other things that circulate. But at my base are relationships that are very, to use your word, 'real,'" she continues. "And I’d love to have them be more rose colored and fluffy, but they’re startlingly real, as is mortality, as are all of those things that you circle as a human being. The only thing I can bring to my work is that emotional truth. My life is my life -- I’m left alone with that ultimately, right?"
Kidman notes that she chooses to use some of her "vulnerabilities" in her work, "but not all of them, because that’s not fair."
"To me. To my relationships. I can give a portion of it, really deeply. But I have to do it in a very safe place with people that I trust not to abuse it or hurt me," she says. "And we’re going to value it."
Even with all of her impressive work, Kidman recently told ET that her kids aren't "obsessed with what I do," adding that they're "really into what they do."
Being the Ricardos is in theaters and streaming on Prime Video now.
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