Tom Cruise Reflects on Past Movie With Ex Nicole Kidman: ‘It Was a Very Unique Experience’

“Mission Impossible” star Tom Cruise opened up about working with his ex-wife Nicole Kidman on their controversial 1999 film, “Eyes Wide Shut.”

“It was a great experience. I was very excited to do it. I knew Stanley’s movies very well and I was introduced to him through Sydney Pollack. So Stanley called Sydney ’cause he wanted me to make a movie. He sent me a fax,” Cruise told Sight & Sound of working with director Stanley Kubrick.

Cruise continued, “I spoke to Scorsese about him and Sydney Pollack… so I knew what he did and how he worked. 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.”

“I thought the film was very interesting, and I wanted to have that experience,” the “Interview with the Vampire” star added.

“It was a very unique experience — not a large crew. We arrived in the summer and basically we just started testing … the script was just an idea. We [were] constantly rewriting the scenes and shooting the scenes and then reshooting the scenes to really find the tone of the film,” Cruise said.

Cruise & Kidman’s First Movie Together Was ‘Days of Thunder’

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Cruise and Kidman first met when they starred in the 1989 film “Days of Thunder.”

“I thought, Wow! This is America! Tom Cruise wants to meet me. He made ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Cocktail’ —the films I grew up watching,” Kidman told Vanity Fair in 2002.

She told the publication, “He basically swept me off my feet. I fell madly, passionately in love. And as happens when you fall in love, my whole plan in terms of what I wanted for my life — I was like, ‘Forget it. This is it.’ I was consumed by it, willingly.”

“And I was desperate to have a baby with him. I didn’t care if we were married. That’s what I wish I’d done,” Kidman shared.

“Eyes Wide Shut” followed their first collaboration, and Kidman said in a 1999 interview of working with her husband, “Within 10 seconds, my character says something that completely changes her partner’s view of her, and I think everybody has, in 10 seconds, can say, probably something about themselves that can change their lover’s view of them.”

“The themes in this movie is pertinent to every couple in the world, at times,” Kidman added.