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Nicole Kidman: 'Eyes Wide Shut' didn't end her marriage

Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY
This image released by Starpix shows actress and honoree Nicole Kidman at a tribute by The Film Society of Lincoln Center following by the premiere of "The Paperboy" at the 2012 New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall, Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2012 in New York. (AP Photo/Starpix, Marion Curtis)
  • Being so revealing didn't come naturally to her
  • Director Stanley Kubrick was 'paternal,' she says
  • Oscar winner is currently shooting 'Grace of Monaco'

Nicole Kidman and then-husband Tom Cruise co-starred in Stanley Kubrick's 1999 sexual psycho-drama Eyes Wide Shut.

The film wasn't a hit. But it also didn't spell the end of the Kidman/Cruise relationship, writes the actress in theHollywood Reporter.

"People thought that making the film was the beginning of the end of my marriage — but I don't really think it was. Tom and I were close then, and it was very much the three of us. Onscreen, the husband and wife are at odds, and Stanley wanted to use our marriage as a supposed reality. That was Stanley: He used the movie as provocation, pretending it was our sex life. Which we weren't oblivious to, but obviously it wasn't us. We both decided to dedicate ourselves to a great filmmaker and artist."

Kidman says being so revealing didn't come naturally to her. "Stanley had to coax me into some of the sexuality in the film in the beginning, but we shot things that were a lot more extreme that didn't end up in the movie. I did feel safe — I never felt it was exploitive or unintelligent. He was very different with women than he was with men. He has daughters, so he was very paternal with me."

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's tribute to Kubrick opens on Nov. 1. Kidman, meanwhile, is currently shooting the royal biopic Grace of Monaco.

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