Nicole Kidman on ageing in the entertainment industry

Written by Sue Williams for Australian Seniors

Nicole Kidman’s rise to global movie star

When you’ve grown up with Nicole Kidman, right from her start as a gawky, frizzy-orange-haired teen in BMX Bandits, it’s sometimes hard to actually appreciate what a gold-plated Hollywood icon she’s now become.

She was up for yet another Golden Globe award at January’s 2025 ceremony, making her the second-most nominated actress of all time after Meryl Streep. Last year she was handed an American Film Institute (AFI) Life Achievement Award, becoming the first Australian actor to receive the honour. So as the rest of the world celebrates ‘our Nicole’, it really is time we joined the chorus.

“This is what I dreamed of since I was a little girl,” the actress says, now 57, and currently one of the most in-demand talents in the world. “I love what I do so I’m going to just give it my all, and then I don’t go out. I go home to be with my family. We do things together.”

The balance of family life and fame

For Nicole, balancing her family and public life has proven a challenge. When she adopted her first two children – Isabella and Connor – with then-husband, Tom Cruise, Nicole struggled with helping them understand that she was just ‘mum’. They kept seeing her, confusingly looking like the people she was playing. “They’ll come on set and see you looking very different and they’ll laugh or point,” she says. “It’s tough but it can also be a lot of fun.”

Now, she has additions to her family with second husband Keith Urban, daughters Sunday Rose, 16, and Faith Margaret, 14, and she’s just as devoted to them. “It’s always important to me to spend time with my family,” she says. 

At the same time, however, her career has simply taken off. With one Oscar, a BAFTA, two Emmys and six Golden Globes, she’s still busier than she’s ever been.

In the last couple of years, she’s starred in the age-gap romance movie A Family Affair, and the erotic thriller Babygirl – for which she earned her latest Golden Globe nomination. She also appeared in the thriller Holland; a starring role with Jamie Lee Curtis in the TV Patricia Cornwell crime series Scarpetta; she’s planning a third season of Big Little Lies; and a sequel to Practical Magic, with Sandra Bullock.

Championing others, on and off screen

It’s almost funny that, in her early 40s, she was so worried that her age would prevent her from winning any more roles, she set up her own production company Blossom Films to make sure that she – along with a number of female writers, producers and directors – would have enough work in the future. Then in 2017, she pledged to work with a female director every 18 months. 

“I love supporting women as writers and directors and really trying to balance that in the industry,” she told Graham Norton on his chat show late last year. “I’ve now worked with 15 women directors in the last seven years.”

As a producer, her breakthrough was that first series of Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, and neither her new production pipeline, nor her acting offers, have topped out.  

She is equally happy to lend a helping hand to those around her. “There are so many opportunities in terms of being able to be of service to the people who are coming up and using what I have and can do for people,” she says. “I’m so much about taking care of other people. I can create more work for people. I can create jobs for people. And, also, I love it. I have the passion.”

It’s not only passion for those big, classic, historical roles either, like The Hours, the film about Virginia Woolf that earned her the Oscar, or the splashy fun jobs, such as Batman Forever, Moulin Rouge! and Australia. She loves mixing them up with daringly small indie films or challenging roles that are bound to attract controversy; think Dogville and Babygirl. 

Her peers in the industry admire her for that, saying she’s drawn to people who really inspire her creativity, and she loves nothing better than testing herself. Even while she’s one of Hollywood’s most versatile and bankable stars, she’s ready to put it all on the line for a project that appeals.

Paying tribute and looking forward

When accepting her AFI Life Achievement Award last year, Nicole paid tribute to her late parents for allowing her the freedom to be anything she wanted, and giving her books to fire her imagination to realise what it was she wanted to do. “It is a privilege to make films,” she says. “And glorious to have made films and television with these storytellers who allowed me to run wild and be free and play all of these unconventional women. Thank you for making me better at my craft and giving me a place, however temporary, in this world.”

And as the years pass, Nicole’s showing no less energy or enthusiasm. The loss of her adored parents – her father Antony in 2014 and mother Janelle last year – was hard, but she’s taken it in her stride. “Mortality. Connection. Life coming and hitting you,” she recently told GQ magazine. “And loss of parents and raising children and marriage and all of the things that go into making you a fully sentient human. I’m in all of those places. Life is definitely a journey.”