Nicole Kidman

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:09

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety eight and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is an actress. In Australia, where she comes from, her performance in a television series Vietnam made her a star overnight. Further successes, including the film Dead Calm, took her to Hollywood to play the love interest in a Tom Cruise film. She went one better than mere acting and married him. Since then, films such as To Die For and Portrait of a Lady have seen her develop as a performer of great skill and versatility, a reputation she enhanced recently by taking a forty pound a night job on the London stage in David Hare's The Blue Room, an adaptation of the famous sexual merry-go-round La Ronde. The critics raved. Men in the audience went pink with pleasure, and everyone agreed that this beautiful woman was a very fine actress indeed. She says of herself, I'm attracted to danger. It's something I have to fight in myself. She is Nicole Kidman. It's been a huge success, Nicole. They say tickets were going on the internet for a thousand pounds a pair. You can't have thought that would happen when you agreed to do this this show.

Nicole Kidman1:34

in a little theatre in the back of London. I ne I had no idea. No. So it's been I mean, for me it's actually been the best experience I've had. And you hadn't been on the stage for a long time, had you?

Presenter1:44

Eleven years. Really? Yeah. Just done cinema. So that was frightening in itself. And then there was the fact that, of course, there were a lot of people, the critics and the chatterers, whispering, Can she act?

Nicole Kidman1:55

Well, uh, luckily I I sort of stopped reading the papers and everything when I started rehearsing because I didn't want to be aware of

Nicole Kidman2:02

Anything other than the play and what we were doing in the rehearsal room.

Nicole Kidman2:07

And Ian Glenn, who's my co star, Sam Mendez and myself were tucked away in this rehearsal room in Brixton and we just rehearsed for six weeks. And it was it was pure pleasure. I mean, as an actress that's what you desire, to just get lost in in something and that's what happened.

Presenter2:25

And they kept it all away from me, what everybody was saying.

Nicole Kidman2:28

Yeah, I mean we'd I'd just drive to work in the morning and bring my lunch and um go in and rehearse and it was very hot and no air conditioning and we'd all sweat and

Presenter2:33

Very hot.

Presenter2:36

But was there a danger not just appearing in the nude on the London stage, but actually performing, I suppose, some of the most explicit sex scenes that have ever been performed on the London stage?

Nicole Kidman2:48

Well, you don't actually see the sex, you see the pre and post sex, and that's what interests me. You say,

Presenter2:52

So that's what interests

Speaker 12:53

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman2:55

But it was it was it was terrifying. We only met the Sunday night before we started rehearsals on the Monday. Sam Mendez had such faith in the two of us doing it together.

Nicole Kidman3:06

And then the next day I remember looking at him thinking, oh my gosh, I'm really going to get to know this person.

Nicole Kidman3:12

And we've since become incredibly close friends. I bet. Yeah, and it's but no, but I mean really on as as a it's it's a n it's a friendship that will last, I think, for a long time.

Presenter3:22

Last, I think, a long time. But how difficult was it as you went through rehearsals? And you did very much. You didn't walk in the first day and take your clothes off.

Nicole Kidman3:26

You didn't walk in.

Nicole Kidman3:28

No, we didn't do that until previews and it was only then that we shook hands on it. He said, I really feel that the playwright should be walking around naked.

Nicole Kidman3:37

And then I said, Well, that means you put me in a position where I can't have.

Nicole Kidman3:41

You walking around naked and me standing there with all my clothes on. So, all right, I will do it if you do it, and we shook on it. And we did it in the dress rehearsal for the first time. But we did not do it in the rehearsal room at all. And even when we were rehearsing, instead of kissing for the first two weeks, we just touched hands. Sam didn't want us to kiss. He wanted us just to touch hands so that you would find out who had the power, who was the one that was instigating it first.

Speaker 13:59

Uh

Nicole Kidman4:08

You know, find the subtleties in a kiss.

Presenter4:10

And what was it like f for your various your your both your spouses to sit in the auditorium and and and to watch you know, that it's not like watching you on film doing it when you can be sitting by his side or her side, is it? It must be really

Nicole Kidman4:21

But

Presenter4:25

It could be quite upsetting.

Nicole Kidman4:27

Well, luckily we're we are both married, so that put us in a position of being able to it wasn't like one of us was single and then you get into that weird

Nicole Kidman4:36

Oh my gosh, is this turning into a pass? Or I mean, because we were both married and we both have children, it was quite upfront.

Speaker 14:38

I mean

Nicole Kidman4:42

And, you know, we've all spent time together now, the four of us, and we're actually going to be spending Christmas together. It's all very we're all very close.

Nicole Kidman4:53

But uh I I think it was uncomfortable, but it's something that you have to deal with when you're an actor.

Presenter4:59

Okay, let's find out about life on a desert island, um, where you can be as naked as the day you were born and nobody wants to see.

Nicole Kidman5:05

I'll have all my clothes on.

Presenter5:07

What what music will we play? Tell me about your first record.

Nicole Kidman5:11

This I chose because my mother introduced me to opera when I was very young.

Nicole Kidman5:16

And she's always been a big influence in my life anyway. We're very close family. This is Rasolka and it's about I just love the story. It's about a water sprite who actually makes a bargain with a witch and loses her tongue. So she's so she's dumb through two-thirds of the opera, which is a fascinating concept anyway. And it's about yearning, it's about wanting something. And I remember as a teenage girl, my mother playing this to me.

Speaker 45:53

Seat Lord break up retail.

Speaker 46:05

So see X have been away.

Speaker 46:27

Most yet.

Presenter6:39

Amanda Rucroft singing O Silver Moon from Dvorak's Rusalka with the London Philharmonica conducted by Frantz Velza Merst. Let's go back to your beginnings, because you were brought up in the Maine in in Australia, in Melbourne and Sydney, but apparently you didn't go to the beach much'cause you didn't you didn't like you were embarrassed about the way you look. Can this be true? Describe yourself.

Nicole Kidman6:54

You didn't

Nicole Kidman6:58

Yes. Oh, well I was five foot ten by the time I was thirteen, which is just awful for a young girl.

Nicole Kidman7:06

and um very s skinny, scrawny, I think I would be called. And uh you know, when you in Australia you desire to be

Nicole Kidman7:16

curvy and blonde and brown. That's uh so you can go to the beach. And you were white. And I was tall and skinny and white. With very, very pale, very pale skinny. Very pale.

Presenter7:20

And you

Presenter7:24

Very, very pale.

Presenter7:26

Claring.

Nicole Kidman7:27

So I would be slathered in sort of sunscreen and zinc on my nose and I I would basically look like a freak.

Presenter7:33

Uh

Nicole Kidman7:33

Yeah.

Presenter7:33

But you went to the theatre instead, I think you went to theater school and

Nicole Kidman7:35

I think where you went to theater school and that sort of thing. I'd catch the bus in the morning. On a Saturday morning I'd get up before my mum and dad to get in there and then start uh classes at eight thirty AM. So you're missing

Presenter7:46

So you obviously really wanted to do it.

Nicole Kidman7:48

Yes, I'd get lost in it. It was something that I could just do. I remember doing Sweet Bird of Youth. I played The Princess. I was thirteen years old. I didn't even understand it, really.

Nicole Kidman7:58

But I'd get up on stage and and it just would come to me. And I even had m I had my first kiss on stage, which was I it's a very strange thing, isn't it? But I got to kiss a boy that I had a huge crush on in our class in a production of Spring Awakening. And I remember just looking forward to that kiss every

Presenter8:18

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman8:18

Every night

Presenter8:19

But how did you know that that's what you wanted to do, to act? When had you first walked on the stage and thought, hey,

Presenter8:25

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman8:25

I like doing this. The very first time was when I was in the school play.

Nicole Kidman8:30

I'd auditioned for Mary and didn't get Mary, and then I auditioned for an angel and didn't get an an I couldn't be an angel. So finally I came up with the character of them they must have sheep. It was the Nativity play. So that was my first

Nicole Kidman8:44

I got I wore a car seat cover.

Speaker 18:44

I got TV

Presenter8:45

In Shava.

Nicole Kidman8:49

and a little sort of headdress thing that my mother made me. And I bleated through the whole production'cause I I I did one bleat and got my first laugh.

Nicole Kidman8:59

And I thought, oh, this is sort of fun. But you liked the laugh. You liked the audience.

Presenter9:02

You like the audience reaction?

Nicole Kidman9:03

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman9:05

It's a terrible thing to admit.

Nicole Kidman9:07

Record number two.

Nicole Kidman9:09

I chose this because my father and my husband both love Elvis, and now I love Elvis, and my father used to sing this song to me, Hush Little Baby.

Speaker 49:23

Oh hush, little baby, don't you cry

Presenter9:33

Elvis Presley's American trilogy, and memories for Nicole Kidman, of a father and a husband who are obsessed with the man with Elvis. Did they both impersonate?

Nicole Kidman9:41

Tim.

Nicole Kidman9:42

Yes, they both do. Tom's impersonation is a little better, I must say.

Presenter9:47

It was obviously, though, a pretty radical household that you grew up in. Your father was or is a psychologist and wrote books about how to change your life.

Nicole Kidman9:54

He's also a biochemist. He he became a psychologist uh when I was twelve or thirteen. And your mother's an academic as well. My mother now edits his books. My mother was a nurse educator, but both my parents worked through my whole childhood. And she was a a a very active feminist, I think, wasn't she? She was part of a

Presenter10:13

Okay.

Nicole Kidman10:14

a group called the Women's Electoral Lobby and so I would go on the weekends and sit and you know there'd be a lot of women talking and drinking coffee and I'd be sort of sitting there going, oh, get me out of this and then my father was very involved in the Labour Party and we lived in quite a conservative neighbourhood but I'd be dragged down to when there were ever there were elections and stuff I'd be dragged down and have to give out pamphlets and I'd sort of hide my head'cause I did I mean the thing is when you're a child you don't want to be different.

Speaker 410:36

My head.

Nicole Kidman10:40

You want to fit in and you don't want to be teased or you're not going to be able to do it. But now you're growing in the score.

Presenter10:43

But now you're a group in Archbook.

Nicole Kidman10:44

Now I'm a grown-up and I've sort of adopted all the same things that they have.

Presenter10:48

Well you like going against the flow, that appeals against danger, a little bit.

Nicole Kidman10:49

Yeah.

Presenter10:52

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman10:52

Yeah, yeah, not conforming. I think there's something in, um, you know, j s sticking to who you are and making choices in your life.

Presenter11:01

But you apparently in the middle of all of this went wild.

Presenter11:05

Um

Presenter11:06

I was a nightmare to my parents, I read. How wild how wild were you?

Presenter11:11

Um

Nicole Kidman11:11

Yeah, there is a lot. I mean, I I hope my daughter isn't the same, put it that way. I mean, I was, you know, I wanted to experience life. And what are we talking about here? Sex, drugs, rock and roll? You know, just let's try it all. Yeah.

Presenter11:26

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman11:27

Uh Uh

Presenter11:28

About

Nicole Kidman11:28

Yeah

Presenter11:28

Sort of went off around the world, didn't you?

Nicole Kidman11:30

Uh

Presenter11:30

Uh

Nicole Kidman11:30

Yeah, when I was 17 I went to Amsterdam and then travelled all through some of my great things. Everybody starts off in Amsterdam. I wonder why.

Presenter11:30

And yeah

Presenter11:35

Everybody starts off in Amsterdam. I wonder why.

Nicole Kidman11:39

But I remember living in a small uh attic in in Paris and that was and I think all of those things feed you. I'm I I will encourage my my own children to do it actually. I bet you.

Presenter11:50

You don't.

Nicole Kidman11:50

You don't.

Presenter11:51

Bet you I do.

Nicole Kidman11:52

Bet you I do.

Presenter11:53

But at some point in all of this, I think you were seventeen when you made this television miniseries, Vietnam, and you were you were kind of made overnight, weren't you?

Nicole Kidman11:58

Um and you were

Nicole Kidman12:02

Yeah, I came back to Australia and I was very lucky because one of my friends had just been employed to direct this mini-series. He was and his name is John Dygan, and he

Nicole Kidman12:11

He gave me my first really

Nicole Kidman12:14

Good role. Demanding role is one. Demanding, complex. And I took uh it was a character who um starts out at fourteen and ends at twenty four and the Vietnam War occurs during that particular period and we were as Australians conscripted to the Vietnam War and how it affects a family.

Presenter12:15

Demanding role is what you're doing.

Nicole Kidman12:32

And you won Best Actress.

Presenter12:34

I think by in Austin Australian Television Awards and that sort of thing. Because you made Bangkok Hilton later on, which was much shown. By the same company, Kennedy Miller. Yeah.

Nicole Kidman12:36

In Australia

Nicole Kidman12:37

Yeah.

Presenter12:43

Which is a

Nicole Kidman12:43

which they then wrote for me actually.

Presenter12:46

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman12:46

And then at some point you made Dead Calm. Well, I think it was a very good question. I made that directly after, and it was written again by Terry Hayes and it was again for Kennedy Miller. So I sort of worked. They took me under their wing and I I think I owe a lot to them because when as an actress you're only as good as the roles you get.

Speaker 112:54

Yeah.

Presenter12:54

What?

Nicole Kidman13:02

Number three.

Nicole Kidman13:03

Because my mother was a feminist, she used to make me sing this song around the piano and she would tell me that this was the anthem for the suffragettes. And she loved it when I would stand there at eleven years old and sing this for her.

Presenter14:18

Jerusalem, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Carl Davis. So it was 1989, you were 22, newly arrived in Hollywood, with a reputation as a very thoughtful and good young actress, and you were being auditioned to star in a film, a kind of boys' adventure pick, with the very famous Mr. Top Gun Tom Cruise. How did it feel?

Nicole Kidman14:42

Um, when I was asked to go in audition, I thought, Oh, I'm never going to get this and I'd seen all of his films and I'd always admired his sense of humour. I'd seen Rain Man and I'd seen

Nicole Kidman14:55

cocktail and I always thought he was he was funny and then when I actually met him

Nicole Kidman15:01

He was so warm. That was the thing that struck me the most. He was warm. And he has this look in his eyes which makes you feel very relaxed. And that was such a strange thing to occur in an audition. So he he actually auditioned you, did he? There was five men in the room.

Presenter15:18

Yeah

Nicole Kidman15:22

I walked in.

Nicole Kidman15:24

And I sat down and he was the one that stood up and shook my hand. And I just remember looking at him when I shook my hand and it was sort of like electricity.

Nicole Kidman15:31

Uh

Presenter15:31

Are we

Nicole Kidman15:31

Yeah.

Presenter15:31

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman15:32

Going through me, yeah.

Nicole Kidman15:33

Yeah.

Presenter15:33

So you met, you acted together, and then at the end of the following year, Christmas Eve, nineteen ninety, you got married. You then went on to make a film together far and away, and you made others by yourself, none of which, I know you won't mind me saying, received great acclaim, critical acclaim.

Nicole Kidman15:49

Critical

Presenter15:50

How much do you think being Mrs. Tom Cruise held up your acting career in a way?

Nicole Kidman15:56

Well, I had a I I had a um a wonderful career in Australia and so I I left that when I met Tom. I left my friends, I left my family, I I left everything.

Presenter16:03

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman16:08

And moved to America, which was something I was not going. I would never have done if I hadn't have fallen in love with him. But.

Nicole Kidman16:16

I I don't know how it affected. I think that, you know, when you're very young and you marry a very famous man, your identity does become.

Nicole Kidman16:24

attuned to hit. Everybody started to think, well, the you know, Tom and Nicole, Tom and Nicole. And so I didn't really have an identity and that was frustrating.

Presenter16:33

Maybe it was also though Hollywood itself that it pigeonholed you. You know, here is a young woman who's good to look at. They didn't bother to ask you to really act, they didn't stretch you. I actually didn't work

Nicole Kidman16:43

for a year. There was a period after Far and Away where I just didn't work and that was due to me not wanting to do stuff that I didn't like doing and and also not getting good roles, no.

Nicole Kidman16:56

Going in and not, and you know, they want to offer it to a name. And I think that's always very frustrating for an actor because, how do you become a name?

Speaker 117:01

Right now.

Nicole Kidman17:03

If you can't get the work. But so I just thought, well, I think probably I'll I'm not going to have the career or I'm not going to have I'm not going to get the work that I wanted to do.

Presenter17:13

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman17:15

Yes. I always think of giving up. Why? Because well, it's I find acting quite difficult emotionally because I really throw myself into it. And um

Nicole Kidman17:27

When you have children, it then becomes

Nicole Kidman17:30

Boy, I want to be there for my children and for my family, and yet I want to give everything I have to this role. And so it really is quite a dilemma. And I think for any woman that's working, it's a dilemma once you have children. Record number four.

Nicole Kidman17:46

I think ever since I was a little girl I've listened to music and emotionally it centers me. I mean I use it when I act all the time.

Nicole Kidman17:53

Even when I'm travelling on a plane or driving I have music in the pocket of my coat or any so that at any time I can put on a C D or I can put a a tape in if there's the opportunity. So when I met Tom, he would take me out and we'd go driving in the snow and he'd do these spins on the ice and very

Nicole Kidman18:11

very much of him and I would sit in the car. But we ended up in this forest with the snow falling one evening. I think it was about two a.m. in the morning. And I happened to have Poetic Champions, the Van Morrison album.

Nicole Kidman18:24

And this song, Someone Like You, came on and we both sat there in the snow with the snow falling around the car and we just listened to this song and this has since became our wedding song.

Speaker 418:38

I've been searching a long time.

Speaker 418:45

Someone

Speaker 418:46

Exactly like you.

Speaker 418:52

I've been traveling all around the world.

Speaker 418:59

When will you?

Speaker 419:01

Come through.

Presenter19:01

Uh

Speaker 419:01

Uh

Speaker 419:04

Uh

Presenter19:04

Someone like you, Van Morrison, and someone like you. I was going to talk about To Die For next, which was of course the film that changed everything that we've just been talking about. But strangely, there are shades of portrait of a lady coming through in the story that you tell of Isabel Archer, of a young woman travelling to another country in search of her destiny, as it were, determined not to get married, actually. And that's true of you too, wasn't it?

Nicole Kidman19:30

When I was um young I thought I would never get married. And I even had a a boyfriend who proposed to me and I said, uh no, well I won't marry you and the only way I'd even consider um being married is if you lived in one place and I lived in the other place and you still had to call me up and ask me out on a date. Um I don't know why I had this view of marriage because my parents are very happily married. But I suppose I just thought that it would never work out. But then

Nicole Kidman19:55

It's my prerogative to change my mind.

Presenter19:56

Of course. But I wonder if that's got anything to do with the the enormous determination you had to play Isabel Archer. That that you did feel this this part

Nicole Kidman20:06

Part of you there, or is that stretching it a bit? I studied the book at school and didn't understand it. And then when I read it again when I was twenty-one, that's when I

Nicole Kidman20:17

I I mean, it it spoke to me in a way that great novels do at a time in your life when your experiences somehow meld with the experiences of the person that you're reading about.

Presenter20:27

Hmm.

Presenter20:28

Isabel Arger, who, you know, doesn't seem like you at all in many other ways, she's very serious, very intense well, there's a very dark side to her. Is there a dark side to Nicole Kidman?

Nicole Kidman20:36

Don't

Nicole Kidman20:39

I think yeah, I think I mean it's something that that you battle, I think. How does it manifest itself in the model? I think in terms of fear, in terms of the way in which you the the things that the stories you're drawn to. But it's something that you keep I mean I choose to keep it very private because and only the people that are very close to me really know me because it's I mean I think it's something that you have to protect and it the way it manifests itself is in your work and in your choices.

Presenter20:44

How does it manifest itself now?

Presenter21:09

She, Isabel, of course, was conducting her life almost exactly a a century earlier. How did you find your way into the character? Did the costume itself help?

Nicole Kidman21:18

It did. I mean I I got lost I mean that when I finished the film I almost collapsed. I I got very sick for two weeks afterwards because I really emotionally got lost in it and there was times and I mean she's in an emotionally abusive relationship with a man and so that was very upsetting. We shot that with the Malkovich section of it for six weeks and every day I would just be going in and doing these scenes that is John Malkovich's Osmond.

Presenter21:44

This is John. John Malkovich's Osmond, who's just a a terrible character. Yes, emotionally.

Nicole Kidman21:49

Yes, she's most drawn to him because she's very stubborn, Isabel, and she she chooses him believing that he is the right person for her, but also in some way, I think, being drawn to him, believing that

Nicole Kidman22:03

He's the wrong person for her as well, which is a very dark thing to do and a very destructive thing to do, but a very fascinating thing to do as well. And I think we've all probably done it at some stage in our lives: chosen the wrong person, knowing they're the wrong person. But the corset became a metaphor in a way for that relationship. And so I would, and I was unaware of this, it subconsciously happened, but I would ask them to be lacing it tighter and tighter, and every day it would get tighter. So the more confined I was and the more restricted, the more it would help me. More music. This is the theme from Portrait of a Lady. I had it.

Nicole Kidman22:45

A very profound experience actually, because I went to we'd finished the movie and Jane invited me to Jane Campion, the director. Writer, director. Yes.

Speaker 122:51

Uh

Presenter22:51

Jane Campion tracks. Right.

Nicole Kidman22:54

Invited me to Prague to listen to the music that had been composed for the film.

Nicole Kidman23:01

And there's something so unique about that, to sit there and listen to music that has been composed for you by a great composer. And I remember sat sitting there and I cried because I'd put so much work into the character and I heard somebody else had put so much work and love and care into the character as well.

Presenter23:52

Love remains from the film Portrait of a Lady written by Wojciech Keelar and played by Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

Presenter23:59

Before Isabel there was some one completely different, called Suzanne Stone in To Die For, a treacherous weather girl who was so ambitious that she was willing to murder her husband to get on. She was a great character, wasn't she?

Nicole Kidman24:07

Yes.

Nicole Kidman24:11

Oh, she was so much fun to play. She was wicked. She was your big break, I believe, out of wicked women.

Presenter24:18

But she was the big break out of this Hollywood thing that wasn't quite going on. Shades of Mrs. Robinson, I think, in the in the in the affair with the young boy, huh?

Nicole Kidman24:20

Wasn't quite

Presenter24:26

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman24:26

Yeah.

Presenter24:26

Yeah. Well written by Buck Henry.

Nicole Kidman24:28

Yeah.

Presenter24:28

Say who wrote the graph.

Nicole Kidman24:28

Take a rubber

Nicole Kidman24:29

But

Presenter24:29

Uh

Nicole Kidman24:29

Yeah.

Presenter24:29

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman24:29

Do it.

Presenter24:29

And and m more than a few shades, I think, of some American television presenters.

Nicole Kidman24:36

Yes, that's right. I mean, I study I actually studied um American beauty pageants.

Nicole Kidman24:41

Because there's something quite ruthless about them. And I got some documentaries on these American beauty pageants, because as playing Suzanne, I had to play.

Nicole Kidman24:51

an American girl and I'm an Australian girl, so I had to find those mannerisms and those things, and that's what I was looking for. And Gus Van Sant also got me to look at Lolita.

Nicole Kidman25:03

As a reference as well. So it's quite strange that then I ended up working with Stanley Kubrick.

Presenter25:04

So it's

Presenter25:08

But it was a which I want to talk about, but it was a low budget movie and I mean Portrait of a Lady was an independent production. All the difference in the world playing in these things from those big Hollywood studio things like like Batman Forever. It's interesting well, it's ironic, isn't it? That it's not

Speaker 125:21

Yeah.

Presenter25:24

not Hollywood that made your name. In the end you make your name doing these these low budget things and and finally doing something for forty quid a night in in in in an experimental theater. I know it is. It is.

Nicole Kidman25:35

It is, but it just it always that always reminds me you cannot you as long as you stay true to what you want to do and I I love to act and if that means doing a a play be it in London or or in Sydney or or if it means doing um something for a year and a half with Stanley Kubrick then that's what you do.

Presenter25:57

Which I gather you're sworn to silence on, but I read it's rumoured it will take R C U and Cinema Sexuality to new depths.

Nicole Kidman26:06

Oh, I doubt that. I mean, I don't know. No, I think it's just Stanley's made the film he wanted to make, and I haven't seen it yet, but being involved in it was a great honour. Working with him was inspiring, and I learnt so much, and I'll always be grateful that he cast my husband and I in this film, and that we got to have that experience together. I mean, it was an epoch in my life.

Presenter26:32

And at least you get uh to make love with your own husband in that one.

Presenter26:36

Maybe. Quite a lot, I understand, yeah.

Nicole Kidman26:38

Quite a lot, I understand.

Nicole Kidman26:42

Next piece of music. Yeah.

Nicole Kidman26:43

Um this is Janice Joplin singing Summertime and

Nicole Kidman26:49

I suppose Janice to me as a young girl was it. She she was a woman that lived on the edge. She has a voice that depicts that and you know she died very early and it was very sad but I think her voice is bittersweet and I think as an actor that's something that you search for in characters as as bittersweet characters.

Speaker 427:27

Summer time time time.

Speaker 427:34

Sure.

Speaker 427:36

Going to see it

Presenter27:41

Janice Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company and Summer Time. You've got two children, Nicole, Bella, who's five, and Connor, who's three, and you obviously adore being a mother. Tell by your face.

Speaker 127:51

Tell button

Presenter27:52

I got you go all gooey with this one.

Speaker 127:53

Dole gooey.

Speaker 427:54

Yeah.

Presenter27:55

Um you you said, as everybody knows before that before you adopted, that you were desperate for a baby. Does is that still with you? Would you still like to give birth to your own child, or has it ceased to matter so much?

Nicole Kidman28:08

Oh, it's Cecil Matter. Once I held Bella in my arms, that was the pregnancy, that was everything. You look into those eyes and that crazy love happens. I mean, and it's crazy love because you'll do anything unconditional. Yeah.

Presenter28:21

Unconditional.

Nicole Kidman28:24

And I think it opens up a part of your heart that uh

Nicole Kidman28:28

that you didn't even know was there.

Nicole Kidman28:30

Mm uh Yeah.

Presenter28:31

But you wouldn't object to be being pregnant yourself.

Nicole Kidman28:34

No, I mean, I'd love to be pregnant, but it's something that uh I mean, it's a that's a very private issue for both Tom and I, but you know, we have two glorious children who consume us.

Nicole Kidman28:48

Uh

Presenter28:48

How easy is that? Can you do that better here than anywhere else?

Nicole Kidman28:48

How is your

Nicole Kidman28:54

We go to the zoo.

Nicole Kidman28:56

Mm.

Nicole Kidman29:00

Because you've been here and around for some time.

Speaker 429:06

Uh

Presenter29:06

Uh

Nicole Kidman29:06

And they go to school here and they've had I mean I think they'll have wonderful memories of England.

Presenter29:15

Because you only rent

Nicole Kidman29:15

Go hiking up in the lake district and all of those things will be will be their memories.

Presenter29:15

Yeah.

Presenter29:20

Never you've never bought a house here?

Nicole Kidman29:22

Do you think we can do that? We rent houses.

Presenter29:22

No, we could do that.

Nicole Kidman29:25

I'd love to. I would love to buy a place here and I hope that we do and I would love to be able to live between here and Sydney. That's my dream.

Presenter29:32

Hmm.

Presenter29:35

There is, though, always, wherever you go, the problem of the public attention, i. e. the press, the press attention, and as we know, that can be more than gossipy, it can get very nasty, it can get libelous, and you've recently won a case against them. Why why did you decide suddenly to take action?

Presenter29:54

Why didn't you just let it wash over here?

Nicole Kidman29:56

Because you t I mean, you turn the other cheek for a long time, you're taught to turn the other cheek. Well, rise above it, sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you.

Nicole Kidman30:05

And then when you have children you say, mm this now rumors and now I think because of the Internet and the m the media in general become fact very, very quickly unless you take action. And I didn't want my kids going to school and having to defend us in the schoolyard.

Presenter30:23

Hmm.

Nicole Kidman30:24

Number seven.

Nicole Kidman30:25

This is a funny one. This was my first audition. I I was at school and I had a a friend who was in commercials and she was

Nicole Kidman30:34

She was sort of very um showy, should we say, and she took me she said, Oh, I'm going to audition for this musical Annie, and if you'd like to come with me, it's an open call audition and you could come with me And I thought, Wow, that sounds like fun on a weekend

Nicole Kidman30:47

And the only song I knew was the song that we were rehearsing for the school play at the end of the year, and that was one from Chorusline. And they stopped me actually after the first the first few lines and said, Thank you, sweetheart, that was lovely, but don't call us, we'll call you.

Speaker 431:02

Singular sensation, every little step she takes.

Speaker 431:08

But

Speaker 431:10

Really combination every move that she makes.

Speaker 431:16

One smile and suddenly nobody else will do

Speaker 431:25

No, you'll never be lonely with

Presenter31:31

One from a chorus line from the original Joseph Papp production. Music, of course, by Marvin Hamlish. So we're sending you, Nicole Kidman, to this desert island. No one else, of course, and you'd miss everybody terribly and so on. But do you think that you could hack it? I mean, could you cope?

Presenter31:47

Hmm. Almost right.

Nicole Kidman31:47

Almost frightened of be I'm not frightened of being alone.

Nicole Kidman31:51

I would hope that there wouldn't be a lot of sun.

Nicole Kidman31:55

I don't like the sun and I'm an autumn winter girl. You can go to a Hebridean desert island if you want. Yeah, I like it when it's bleak.

Presenter32:00

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman32:02

Yeah.

Presenter32:02

What about mentally? What about mentally though? Can you you know I I know you and Tom are Scientologists, would would that belief, would that church support you or?

Nicole Kidman32:12

No, I mean I for me I think

Nicole Kidman32:15

I I I I think I would hope to get off, but I would kind of relish some some time alone, I think. But do you do you do you need

Presenter32:23

Need guard in all of this, or you know, it's just in order to stay safe.

Nicole Kidman32:27

Well, I'm a Catholic girl. I mean, I think in terms that never leaves you. I was um raised Catholic and and so in some way that always stays with you.

Presenter32:37

So the one church doesn't replace the other.

Nicole Kidman32:38

And church doesn't

Presenter32:40

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman32:40

No, no. Um and and I and I think that uh

Nicole Kidman32:46

I would m you know, I would h miss my family dreadfully, which is why I think I would be saying I I am going to get off this island.

Presenter32:53

You don't think you'd sink into the into the dark side of yourself that you were describing, you know?

Nicole Kidman32:59

At times, but I think that's sort of quite appealing at times too. Last record.

Nicole Kidman33:05

This has to be Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World, because I suppose I am I mean, I'm an optimist, even though I ha I fight sometimes a pessimist approach to things. I I am an optimist. I do believe the glass is half full and not half empty.

Speaker 433:24

I see trees of green.

Speaker 433:28

Red and roses too.

Speaker 433:31

I see them blue.

Speaker 433:35

Five minutes.

Speaker 433:37

And I think to myself.

Speaker 433:42

What a wonderful

Presenter33:50

Louis Armstrong, of course, and what a wonderful world. If you could only take one of those eight records.

Nicole Kidman33:54

Those eight

Presenter33:56

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman33:56

It'd have to be Louis'cause he makes you smile every time you hear him sing.

Nicole Kidman34:01

What about your book?

Nicole Kidman34:03

You do know you've got the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. Yes, so then I would take some poetry because.

Nicole Kidman34:11

I love poetry and you can read it over and over again each time it's different. Emily Dickinson.

Presenter34:14

Who will

Speaker 134:14

Which is time.

Nicole Kidman34:17

What about your luxury?

Nicole Kidman34:19

My luxury would be.

Nicole Kidman34:23

Sunblock, SPF 45. Isn't that

Nicole Kidman34:26

It's a very practical luxury. It's very practical because I am going to get off the island.

Presenter34:28

I'm very practical.

Nicole Kidman34:31

And in case it is uh very hot and sunny, which even though I hope it isn't, you must have that sun block.

Presenter34:37

Nicole Kidman, thank you very much indeed for letting us see your desert island discs. Thank you.

Speaker 134:49

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.