Nicole Kidman said she’s “very close” with her teenage daughters and wants to keep it that way.
The Nine Perfect Strangers star divulged details about her marriage to Keith Urban and relationship with their daughters, Sunday Rose, 16, and Faith Margaret, 14, in an interview with Allure published on Thursday, May 22.
“I do, actually [like who I am as a mother]. Yeah. I’m very close to both my girls,” Kidman, 57, said when asked about parenthood. (Kidman also has two grown children, Isabella, 32, and Connor, 30, from her previous marriage to Tom Cruise.)
“I sit on their beds and discuss the most intimate things; I get to be their guide,” she continued. “If they want to tell me to be quiet, they can. I’m able to apologize to them. I’m able to stand up to them. I very much like the relationship we have. It’s nice to be able to say that.”
Kidman, who said she’d be a teacher if she weren’t an actress, added that she’s perhaps an “over-giver” who will always prioritize her children.
“I grew up with a very strong connection to taking care of my mother and my family and being the oldest child. Put the oxygen mask on yourself first, right? Right. It sounds good in theory, but it doesn’t make sense to me when you have kids. I will do anything in terms of sacrifice. I want them to feel completely loved, completely prioritized.”
Kidman was very close with her mother, Janelle Ann Kidman, who died in September 2024 at age 84. The Babygirl star was set to receive the best actress prize at the Venice Film Festival when she received the news of her mom’s death. “I’m in shock and I have to go to my family, but this award is for her,” Kidman said in a statement at the time. “She shaped me, she guided me and she made me. I am beyond grateful that I get to say her name to all of you through Halina [Reijn, Babygirl director]. The collision of life and art is heartbreaking, and my heart is broken.”
She told Allure, “Losing my mother changed every part of me. I spoke to her every second or third day. And because she was on the other side of the world, if I woke up at 5 a.m., I’d get up, I’d walk around the block and I’d talk to her for an hour before the girls got up, before Keith got up. That was the rhythm of my day.”
Kidman said she’s still dealing with the loss.
“I’m so raw with it,” she continued. “I feel embarrassed because I feel like, ‘Oh, you’ve talked about it enough.’ So I have to keep saying to myself, ‘It’s OK. Maybe it’s my sense of what I feel I should be doing.’ I’m trying to be quiet and have it be a more intimate thing with just my friends or my sister. The love was so profound that the loss of it … I’m on the journey of grief, the year of magical thinking.”
