The Nicole Kidman marriage warning that circulated in Hollywood circles during the early 1990s has finally been addressed in full by the star herself, in a candid interview with British Vogue. Kidman says she was told, plainly, that tying the knot with Tom Cruise would derail her career, and her response was equally plain: she did not care.
Kidman and Cruise first met in 1990 while filming Days of Thunder and married a year later. She was, by her own account, in no doubt about the decision. ‘Yeah, I got married so young,’ she told British Vogue. ‘Suddenly I was 22, 23 years old and I had this huge movie star husband. But it just seemed completely natural. We just fell madly in love and it was that simple.’
Nicole Kidman marriage warning: ‘I don’t care. I’m in love’
The warnings, when they came, were direct. ‘I remember people saying to me, “OK, well this is really going to affect your career,”‘ Kidman recalled. Her reply was equally direct: ‘I’m like, “I don’t care. I’m in love. I want to be married.”‘
When the marriage did attract that very scrutiny the advisers had predicted, reducing her in some quarters to simply his ‘wife’, Kidman was unmoved. ‘I’m like, “So what? I wasn’t meant to marry the man I love? Of course I’ll throw my career away. I don’t care.”‘
The warning, of course, did not come to fruition. During and after the marriage, Kidman built a career that has included The Others, Babygirl, Practical Magic, Paddington and Being the Ricardos, among many others. The couple also collaborated on screen, appearing together in Eyes Wide Shut, Far and Away and August.
They adopted two children, a daughter and a son, during the marriage. In 2001, they announced plans to divorce.
Life after the split, and what comes next
Both have since moved on. Keith Urban became Kidman’s husband after the split, and Cruise later married Katie Holmes.
Now, Kidman has a high-profile return on the horizon. She is reprising her role as Gillian Owens in Practical Magic 2, alongside Sandra Bullock as sister Sally Owens. The two are also serving as producers on the sequel. Returning alongside them are Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest, who played aunts Jet and Franny Owens in the original, while Joey King, Maisie Williams and Lee Pace join the cast as newcomers.
Practical Magic 2 is set for release in UK cinemas on 11 September 2026. It will be one of the more anticipated returns of that year, not least because of just how thoroughly the original built its audience over time.
As for the Nicole Kidman marriage warning that started this particular conversation, the decades since have done the talking. The British Vogue interview makes clear she never needed anyone’s permission, and, as her career since demonstrates, she was right not to ask for it.
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