Five Things You May Not Know About Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman is having a whirlwind year, from embarking on the premiere tour for Boy Erased, to playing detective in the upcoming film The Destroyer, to producing the second season of Big Little Lies. it’s a wonder she’s had any time to herself. Earlier this week, the Academy Award-winning actress even managed to fly halfway around the world to unveil Omega’s new Constellation Manhattan collection in Shanghai, China.

Fulfilling her duty as one of four women ambassadors chosen by the brand, alongside models Cindy Crawford and Alessandra Ambrosio, and Chinese actress Liu Shishi, the Australian actress sat down with L’Officiel USA, to talk about the importance of “me” time, becoming a psychologist, and what’s next for Big Little Lies.

1. She keeps work out of the house.  

[Husband Keith Urban] and I always say we’re very good at immediately clicking off because we have a life in Nashville that’s very simple—it’s quiet and it’s very nourishing. We’ve made sure we’ve set it up like that. We’re pretty strict with the boundaries on what we allow into our home in terms of work. I used to have an office in my house and I just got the office out of my house. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. Finally I went, “This is not a good thing.” We don’t even have a TV in our bedroom, we’re that couple. And no computers on the bed.

2. She wears a watch to avoid checking her phone.

I really try to wear a watch to keep it separate from a phone because I think that’s an important part of controlling our work-pleasure ratio, so that you do consistently say, “I need to have me time, I need to have family time that isn’t work time.” You know, so much of work is attached to your phone. Suddenly you pick up your phone to see the time, then you see a text. And then you think, “Oh, my gosh, I’ve got to return that email.” Before you know it, you’re drawn into the abyss. Whereas a watch is a watch, done. I think it’s good to keep them separate.

3. Her career plan B was to become a psychologist.

I would have loved to have probably done psychology. I’m always interested in the human mind. I’m interested in people, I'm interested in the way we interact and why we behave in certain ways. I also love talking to people and I love giving and sharing. My father was a psychologist, he started out as a biochemist and then he became a psychologist.

4. We can expect richer storylines for Laura Dern and Zoe Kravitz’s characters in Big Little Lies season two.

We really had to work to get everybody, because we had a book the first time around and the second time around, we didn’t. But what we did have was that people had bonded with these women and we had storylines that were suddenly rich. We realized that it wasn’t just about what happened to Perry. People were interested in the women, which was really, really satisfying. And now we’ve been able to broaden it, we’ve brought in Meryl Streep and we’ve also given really strong storylines to Renata (Laura Dern) and to Bonnie (Zoe Kravitz). So instead of it being primarily Madeline and Celeste, we’ve broadened it. Jane has a strong storyline now too, even though I thought she did in the first one.

5. She wants to play a Russian character in another Liane Moriarty book.

I have a book called Nine Perfect Strangers which I just bought, written by the same writer who wrote Big Little Lies and it’s fantastic. I’m really looking to play the role of Marsha. She’s Russian.