Independent Perspective News

Two years after her divorce from Tom Cruise, the actress -who will soon be seen interpreting Virginia Woolf- speaks of the rough times she's been through.

(...)

In Hollywood, everybody says this is Kidman's best moment. She turned 35 in June. Her three latest movies, Moulin Rouge, The others and Russian Roulette have earned her high praise. "She's in her prime -says director Baz Luhrmann-. As for talent and appeal, she's never been better".

(...)

Her career develped much faster than before during the last two years, noticeable since she divorced Cruise. The couple made three movies, adopted two children (Isabella, 9, and Connor, 7), and was the most dazzling and controversial marriage in Hollywood.

(...)

After the split, the public took Kidman's side. "I wish this success would have been possible if I had stayed married", she says, slowing down her talking speed. "I would hate to think that you must experience something like this to..." She stops.

I ask her whether, like many other women, she paid more attention to her husband's career than hers. "Probably -she answers-. He's the main movie star in the world... But it was also my own choice, and I don't regret it. To me, my marriage was top priority. And I wanted to have kids. Since I married, at 23, I had wanted to have a baby. I didn't care about the films. We adopted Bella when I was 25. My attention was focused on her."

Two years after their separation, Kidman begins to think of herself as a divorcee. "It's a failure -she says-. If I was asked what I would have wanted for my life, I can tell you it wouldn't be this. I would have liked living like my parents, raising my two children together as a family. But now I'm a divorcee." At this point, her voice almost breaks. "Just like millions of divorced women, I must face what that entails." She sighs. "I believe I grew with the divorce. Other things also happened to me: I lost a baby, I had health troubles. Things I never talked about and will probably never do because they're private. But it was terrible. I saw everything black. And I feslt very lonely. I was scared to death and dreaded my future. I thought I knew what my future would be like, but suddenly I didn't, and I started wondering: 'What is this all about? What's life? What do I want to live for?' I had very nihilistic thoughts."

"But once I started facing everything, I felt better -she adds. Before, I was walking the world wearing pink glasses. I've always known we all must undergo bud times in our lives. However, going though all that in a two- month period made me think: 'This is too much. How am I going to overcome it?' But I did, and it was then when I realized I had grown up."

Friends would come from everywhere in the world. "They helped me get up in the morning -she recalls. They gave me a lot of affection. In spite of that I became aware that, in fact, I'm all alone. Sometimes there's no one to hold our hand. The night comes and I go to sleep alone. Then I say to myself: 'Well, it's ten hours of darkness and then the sun will come up'. Now I feel a great deal of compassion for all the people who has to go through that."

Kidman sees the irony in the fact that the end of her marriage has also brought her some benefits. "It allowed me to open both in the professional and personal levels. Now I feel a more complete person. I would have never been able to go to Sweden to make Von Trier's movie, for instance. Now I can."

(...)