Nicole Kidman talks about working with Stanley Kubrick

“Eyes Wide Shut” was Stanley Kubrick’s final film. He died four months before its release. It took its stars — Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Hollywood’s most famous couple — off the market for nearly two years, as what was supposed to be a six-month shoot stretched on indefinitely, to the point where Kidman seriously began to wonder: Is this ever going to end?  Not that she was in any hurry to leave.

“I would have stayed a third year,” Kidman tells me. “Does that mean I’m crazy?” The protracted buildup led to wild speculation and curiosity about the movie, which had been teased as a “story of jealousy and obsession.”

When it was finally released on July 16, 1999, the response was muted, tinged with disappointment. But its reputation and its mysteries have deepened over the years. Christopher Nolan calls it “the ‘2001’ of relationship movies.” He is not entirely wrong.  Kidman and I have talked about the film many times over the years. With “Eyes Wide Shut” marking its 25th anniversary, it felt like a good occasion to deepen the discussion.

You told me once that Kubrick jettisoned a scene in “Eyes Wide Shut” that you had spent six weeks filming. What scene?

Maybe that was an exaggeration. [Laughs.] It was the scene with Tom and I where I start by smoking and where I laugh and deliver the long monologue. That took many weeks. A lot of that was rehearsing in the bedroom and then him not liking what we’d done. So we ended up reworking it, constructing it as we went along. There was no need to rush. Stanley would never go over budget. What he bought was time.

How did that scene evolve?

Just a lot of talking. When Tom and I first started with Stanley, it was at his home, and we didn’t even go over to the sets at Pinewood [Studios]. Six, eight weeks passed, and we’re wondering, “Are we ever going to start?” And we just wouldn’t start. We were getting comfortable with each other, comfortable enough to throw out ideas. For that scene, we improvised the beginning of it through the rehearsals.

Did you feel like he was mining your own marriage to inform the relationship between Bill and Alice?

I suppose he was mining it. There were ideas he was interested in. He’d ask a lot of questions. But he had a strong sense of the story he was telling. I do remember him saying, “Triangles are hard. You have to tread carefully when it’s a triangle.” Because one person could feel ganged up on. But he was aware of that and knew how to manage us.

Did you ever feel ganged up on?

No. But there’s something about being a woman in that equation, too. And Stanley liked women. He had a different relationship with Tom. They worked more closely together on his character.

So you’re having these conversations, getting to know each other, and he’s shaping the script. What part of yourself did you bring to Alice?

My boldness. I’m quite up-front and Alice becomes quite up-front, particularly when she was stoned ... although that wasn’t me when I was stoned. I was just naturally like that. Up-front.

How much experience in being stoned did you bring to the role?

Oh, I smoked when I was younger. But it definitely wasn’t of interest then.

Did you agree with him?

No! I’d tell him, “That’s not true!” [Laughs.] And he’d say, “Nicole. Nicole.” But I like to have a more hopeful sense of humans, which I’d always try to argue in my youthful enthusiasm.

Are you aware that watching “Eyes Wide Shut” has become a Christmas movie ritual for some?

Sheesh. That’s an odd Christmas movie! [Laughs.] Well, there’s so many layers to all of his films, which is why we keep coming back to them.

Tribune News Service