Laughter Love And Lies

Award-winning actress and Hollywood royalty Nicole Kidman chats to Jenny Cooney Carrillo about finding love in her forties, celebrating sisterhood, and working with the great Meryl Streep

- Jenny Cooney Carrillo

Nicole Kidman may well be Hollywood’s quintessential Renaissance woman. At 51, an age when most actresses bemoan the lack of substantial roles and the fading lustre of their careers, Nicole is riding the crest of a professional wave. Her presence and longevity have been reinvigorated in a notoriously capricious industry that often abandons genuine talent if it’s not wrapped in a vivacious 30-something package.

Yet here stands Nicole, who strode onto the Hollywood stage almost three decades ago as Tom Cruise’s love interest in Days of Thunder, defiantly winning accolades and honours not only for her moving, complex roles on screen, but for her skill and acumen as a producer, too. Big Little Lies, the HBO TV series that Nicole stars in and co-produces with actress Reese Witherspoon, received an astounding 16 Emmy nominations in 2017 and won eight, including a personal Emmy for Nicole as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. Underpinning this career revitalisation is yet another successful second act, one that forms the perfect foundation for her triumphs. And that foundation is the commitment, security and affection she has found with the love of her life, country-music superstar Keith Urban, the father of her daughters Sunday Rose, 10, who goes by Sunny, and Faith Margaret, eight, whom Nicole affectionately calls Fifi.

“We’re told that the chances of finding love decrease as you get older,” she says. “So I like to say to women now, ‘No, I met the love of my life at 40.’ It’s an important thing to emphasise, because it’s a beautiful thing and if it happened to me, it can happen to anyone. Keith and I always say how lucky we are to have each other. To come home to love and strength after a hard day is nourishing and powerful.”

ON SUCCESS TODAY