Tom Cruise Reflects on Getting Then-Wife Nicole Kidman Cast in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’: ‘She’s a Great Actress’

Stanley Kubrick initially only wanted to work with Cruise on what would become his final film, but the actor was able to convince the legendary director into making it a family affair.

A benefit of being Tom Cruise must be that whenever he wants something to happen, he’s probably able to make it happen. Even when it came to offering casting suggestions to a notoriously finicky director like Stanley Kubrick, Cruise managed to get his way, convincing the “Eyes Wide Shut” filmmaker to bring then-wife Nicole Kidman into the project. Speaking for an interview featured in the June issue of Sight and Sound (per The Independent), the “Mission: Impossible” star recalled traveling to England to meet Kubrick for the first time and pitching Kidman for “Eyes Wide Shut” then and there.

“I flew out to his house and I landed in his backyard. I read the script the day before and we spent the day talking about it. I knew all of his films,” Cruise said. “Then it was basically he and I getting to know each other. And when we were doing that, I suggested Nicole play the role [of Alice]. Because obviously she’s a great actress.”

As on most of his films, Cruise’s mindset working with Kubrick was “whatever it’s going to take we’re going to do this.” The actor said he felt that way even after a shoot that was supposed to last “three or four months” ballooned to a year-plus due to reshoots and Kubrick’s obsessive attention to detail. Looking back on the work today, Cruise said he valued it for the lessons he learned and how unique the film continues to be.

“I thought the film was very interesting, and I wanted to have that experience,” he said. “When I go to make a movie, I do a lot of detailed investigation and a lot of time with the people before I commit so that I understand what they need and want and they understand me and how we can work together and really create something very special.”

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times last summer, Kidman also reminisced on her work in “Eyes Wide Shut,” having her own reasoning for why Kubrick brought her onto the project. She believed it was her “boldness” that made her the right fit for Alice: the wife to Cruise’s New York doctor, both of whom arrive in the film under-stimulated by their somewhat tepid marriage.

“I suppose that was why he cast me. That mischief, that provocative nature, he found that out and it got more imbued into Alice,” said Kidman to the LA Times. “The scene where I drop the dress … that was me. That wasn’t written. That was my dress from my closet. ‘This is how I take off the dress, Stanley.’ Because I had a lot of clothes, we weren’t paying to buy clothes. And Stanley had come over and I was showing him all these beautiful dresses. That’s how that happened.”