Nicole Kidman almost left Hollywood for good in 2008.
After moving to Nashville and giving birth to her first daughter with country superstar Keith Urban, the Academy Award winner thought she was “pretty much done” with acting and wanted to turn her full attention to her new family. That is until her mother stepped in and urged her to keep going.
“When I get birth to [Sunday Kidman-Urban], I was like, ‘Well, I think I’m pretty much done now,’” Kidman told CBS News. “We were living on a farm, and that’s when my mother said, ‘I wouldn’t give up completely. Keep a finger sort of in it.’ And I’m like, ‘No, no. I’m done now. I’m done.’ She’s going, ‘Just listen to me. Keep moving forward. Not saying that you have to do it to the level you’ve been doing it, but I wouldn’t give it up completely.’”
Kidman took the advice to heart, and three years later, she scored her third Oscar nomination for her leading performance in “Rabbit Hole.” In the years to come, Kidman would star in “Just Go With It,” “Hemmingway & Gellhorn,” “Stoker” and “The Railway Man.”
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“That came from a woman who was from a generation that didn’t have the opportunities that I had, that she had helped create for her daughters,” Kidman added. “So that’s probably something that she wished she’d had when she was little.”
Kidman will soon star alongside Harris Dickinson in A24’s erotic thriller “Babygirl.” Hitting theaters Christmas day, the film follows Romy (Kidman), a high-powered CEO who puts her career and family at risk when she becomes romantically involved with a much younger intern at her company (Dickinson).