Nicole Kidman looks back on the set of Eyes Wide Shut, which celebrates its 25th anniversary

“I could have stayed a third year. Does that mean I'm crazy?”

Nominated at the start of the millennium for the César for best foreign film, Eyes Wide Shut is the latest feature film by Stanley Kubrick. He died some time after completing the editing, and four months before its release in July 1999 in the United States. In this psycho-erotic thriller, Tom Cruise And Nicole Kidman camp a bourgeois couple whose relationship is analyzed from every angle by the filmmaker's camera. Returning from a Christmas party, drunk, Alice reveals to her husband, Bill, that she has already felt desire for another man. Then begins Bill's nocturnal wanderings, who ends up at a mysterious party given in a manor. Under Venetian masks, an orgy is organized by a secret society. Doubt mixes with dreams and reality, in an immense game of appearance, voyeurism and fantasy.

Twenty-five years later, Eyes Wide Shut has acquired the status of a cult and enigmatic work: eccentric and provocative. Around the latter, the eyes turn to the couple Cruise and Kidman, together in life at the time, and who ended up separating after its release. Anatomy of a marriage that the Australian recently shared at Los Angeles Times looking back on the filming of this movie.

When she and her husband met the director at his villa, he immediately told the couple that there was no way they were going to put him on a pedestal. He wanted their trio to be equals. What followed was eight weeks of discussion. Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise wondered if they were really going to make this film. She explains:

“He told us to throw out ideas. And everyone had to wait at least ten seconds before saying no to an idea. I was hearing that, I was in my twenties, and I thought, 'OK here we go.' It was experimental, like making a student film in Australia.”

Over the years, rumors have grown about the loving duo, their failing marriage and their subsequent divorce. from Eyes Wide Shut. How much of Nicole and Tom is there in Alice and Bill? For the actress, it is not impossible that Stanley Kubrick was inspired by their couple to create this strange relationship:

“I guess he was drawing on it. There were ideas that interested him. He asked a lot of questions. But he also had a strong sense of the story he wanted to tell. I remember him saying: 'Triangles are complicated. You have to do things precisely when it comes to a triangle.' Because a person can feel left out. But he was aware of that and knew how to lead us.”

After weeks of discussion, filming was able to begin. As Nicole Kidman explained during this interview, it was not uncommon for a scene to take several weeks to film and rehearsals dragged on, leading to many changes and spontaneous actions. Thus, when the young woman gets naked in front of her husband, it is an unscripted gesture coming from intensive rehearsals:

“The scene where I drop my dress… that was me. It wasn't in the script. It was actually a dress that came from my closet. 'That's how I take off my dress, Stanley.' Because I had a lot of clothes, we didn't have to buy any for the movie. Stanley came over and I showed him all the different beautiful dresses I had. That's how it happened.”

It ultimately took two years to complete filming. With humor, the actress declares today: “I could have stayed a third year. Does that mean I'm crazy?”

With Tom Cruise, they divorced in 2001, giving rise to this famous photo where she is seen leaving the lawyer, happier than ever. Now, she would no longer live in the shadow of the actor of Top Gun. She would shine more than ever in the cinema.

Nicole Kidman, Eyes Wide Open: Portrait of an Exceptional Woman