Speaker 1 (Nicole Kidman):

I think I was just, you know, I had – I just had big aspirations. But I was very committed to acting. It was not about, 'Oh I want to be…' – I mean I’m sure if there was social media then, I would not have been sort of – that wasn’t my trajectory in terms of celebrity or fame. I wanted to act. I wanted to play great roles. Work with great directors. And contribute in that way. That’s always been the pull for me. And that’s probably been the thing that’s seen me through many different, you know, paths and the way in which my life has played out.

But the love of what I do has never – I mean it’s waned at times, just because of having children and the pull of my relationships and life – but the passion for the storytelling and the making of a film, or a stage play, or being involved with a group of people developing a script, doing a table reading, even a radio play, anything like that, that has not – that’s never gone away. If anything, it’s probably – I see the value of it even more now.

Speaker 2 (Interviewer Jenny Cooney):

So when you came over with Dead Calm, and you were doing publicity, did you get the audition for Days of Thunder on that trip, or were you back in Australia and had to –

Nicole Kidman:

No.  I had to – I mean I had a few trips over where I paid my own way and came and stayed in crummy little hotels in Los Angeles, and went on auditions, and tried to get a job, you know.

Interviewer:

Did you know anyone in LA at the time?

Nicole Kidman:

Phillip Noyce was really – and Jan Sharp, and they let me sleep on their couch at the Chateau Marmont once – I was like sleeping on their couch in the room, indebted to them.

Interviewer:

And Deborra-Lee [Furness] too, right?  Didn’t you even crash with...

Nicole Kidman:

Deborra-Lee let me sleep on the floor. Tom Burlinson and I had broken up.

Interviewer:

Though she was living with Tom Burlinson.

Nicole Kidman:

Yeah. We’d broken up at that time, but we were such good friends that he let me sleep – he gave up the bed in the room.

Interviewer:

Awww.

Nicole Kidman:

He slept on the floor. That’s a gentleman, right?

Interviewer:

I remember though how that apartment in Central City –

Nicole Kidman:

Such a good man.

Interviewer:

– they shared an apartment as friends and...

Nicole Kidman:

Yeah, this was a house –

Interviewer:

– that was when – so he came back when you were –

Nicole Kidman:

– that I think Kylie Minogue’s manager owned or something.

Interviewer:

Yes. Yes.

Nicole Kidman:

And so we would all hub out of that and –

Interviewer:

The house on –

Nicole Kidman:

– eternally indebted to all of these people because – and we were a group. We were a clan. You know, we were able to – we were the Aussies trying to make it overseas.

Interviewer:

Was there a bigger group than that, or it was really very small back then?

Nicole Kidman:

I mean Deborra-Lee had a bigger group, and Tom, they obviously knew a lot – a much bigger. But for me, it was Deb and Tom who were my really close friends. And Tom drove me – Tom Burlinson drove me to the audition for Days of Thunder.

Interviewer:

Wow.

Nicole Kidman:

How sweet is that?

Interviewer:

Wow.

Nicole Kidman:

I mean, what a great – great guy.

Interviewer:

Days of Thunder was sort of like the – your entry into that Hollywood sort of system, I guess, in a way.

Nicole Kidman:

A very strange entry.

Audio excerpt from Days of Thunder (Tony Scott, USA, 1990):

Claire Lewicki (Nicole Kidman): Your vision’s restored?
Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise): I think so.
Claire: Nothing’s blurred, you’re not seeing double? No halos around objects? Flashing lights?
Cole: Now how – what are – what are you going to do with this?
Claire: Look into your eyes.
Cole: Now doc, doc. Isn’t this what you’re really looking for?
Claire: Well that’s interesting enough, Mr Trickle, but it’s just not my specialty.

Interviewer:

Very overwhelming.

Nicole Kidman:

Yeah.

Interviewer:

I would imagine, in so many ways.

Nicole Kidman:

Yeah.

Interviewer:

It wasn’t like you did the little movie and then the next little movie. It was like one day nobody knew who you were, and –

Nicole Kidman:

But I think because I’d done all of that in Australia, and then I came over here... And I’d tried for a while to audition and –

Interviewer:

See people never know that.

Nicole Kidman:

Yeah.

Interviewer:

People think that one day you just wake up and you get –

Nicole Kidman:

Offered something, and you’re put on a plane and –

Interviewer:

You know, but all the Australians have that in common. They all come over and they really …

Nicole Kidman:

Yeah, and you have to crash on somebody’s floor. I mean the hotels were expensive, and there’s only so much – and then you’re sort of hoping – hoping. And you can only stay for a week, or 10 days, or – I mean I’m sure it’s different now, but then it was, that’s all I could afford. And then I would hope something would happen. And then I would head back. With nothing.

Interviewer:

Yeah.

Nicole Kidman:

So when Days of Thunder happened, I remember going in and auditioning and kind of getting the job on the spot. Which was crazy. And Tony Scott, Tom and Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer were all – and Bob Towne – that was the room that I auditioned for.

Interviewer:

Tough room.

Nicole Kidman:

Tough room. And then suddenly I was cast in the movie. And I didn’t know anything about car racing or anything, and I remember –

Interviewer:

Or brain surgery.

Nicole Kidman:

Well then I – well because I was an intern, everyone’s like, 'She was a brain surgeon'. No, I was an intern. So an intern is someone that’s a lot younger, that is learning, and that is interning. So that was the – I was still probably young for that, but not as young as for a real brain surgeon. So as an intern – but I went into the hospitals, into the Emergency Rooms when we were shooting in – we started off shooting in South Carolina – and, you know, I remember them going, 'What is she doing?' And I’m like, 'I’m doing my research'.

You know, I always took everything so seriously. I did not – but of course, when you get a big break like that, I was like, 'I’m going to do everything to learn all about it and … So I was in – I had them set me up for going into the Emergency Room, and I was in that hospital for about 5 days, during the day, just learning how to be in a hospital in an Emergency ward.

Interviewer:

Right.

Nicole Kidman:

And they made fun of me! (laughs)

Interviewer:

You do take it seriously.

Nicole Kidman:

Well –

Interviewer:

You have to, right?

Nicole Kidman:

Yeah. I say it requires so much focus, and hard work, and passion. But you – some people maybe are going to be given things on a silver platter and it’s all going to sort of just be a really kind of easy ride, and you don’t have to do much work. That’s not my – it’s never been my road.