"Eyes Wide Shut"

Kidman: Kubrick exploited her marriage to Cruise

Scene from "Eyes Wide Shut"

(Bild: picturedesk.com/Warner Bros Italy / EPA)

Nicole Kidman believes that Stanley Kubrick carefully "exploited" her and Tom Cruise's marriage as inspiration for his film "Eyes Wide Shut".

The 57-year-old Oscar winner played the wife of Tom's character Bill Hartford alongside Tom Cruise (62) in the 1999 film. She upsets him when she tells him that she dreams of sleeping with another man. This triggers his descent into a seedy underworld of orgies and satanic rituals controlled by the richest and most powerful forces in society.

25th film anniversary
Kidman, who married Cruise nine years before the film was released and divorced him in 2001, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview to mark the 25th anniversary of the film's release when asked if Stanley took inspiration from their marriage for the project: "I suppose he took advantage of it." She added: "There were ideas that (Stanley) was interested in. He asked a lot of questions. But he had a strong sense of the story he wanted to tell."

Shooting a scene for weeks
Fans have speculated that the movie's intense scenes, which dealt with the complex couple dynamic, may have put a strain on the pair's marriage. According to Kidman, they spent weeks shooting a single scene, among others, which was eventually cut.

She added: "It was the scene with Tom and I where I start smoking the joint in bed and I'm laughing and having a long monologue. That took many weeks. A big part of it was rehearsing in the bedroom and then he didn't like what we had done. So we reworked it and built it up bit by bit. There was no need to rush. Stanley would never have gone over budget. What he bought was time."

Last work before death
"Eyes Wide Shut" received a mixed reception from critics when it was released, but has since achieved cult status. The film was the last work of "Full Metal Jacket" director Stanley Kubrik before he died on March 7, 1999 at the age of 70.