Nicole Kidman Says She Was “Beyond Lonely” the Night She Won Her Oscar

“I had the pinnacle of my success, and I went home and was so lonely.”

Professionally, it was the highest of highs—what can get better for an actress than winning the Best Actress Oscar? But for Nicole Kidman, the night she took home that prize in 2003 for her role in The Hours, it was amidst a personal low for her, right on the heels of her 2001 divorce from Tom Cruise.

Kidman spoke about the dichotomy on the September 10 episode of Jake Shane’s “Therapuss” podcast, which she appeared on alongside Practical Magic 2 co-star Sandra Bullock. She called the night she won her Oscar “beyond lonely,” noting that it made her realize “I’ve got to get a life.”

Wearing Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture, Kidman won the award for her role as Virginia Woolf in 2002’s The Hours. She told Shane of the moment, “I had the pinnacle of my success, and I went home and was so lonely.”

“So yeah, crazy, though—that sort of the confluence of events where you go, ‘I wish…’” she continued. “I had my mom with me and my dad, but I was like, ‘Where’s my partner, someone that I can share this with?’”

She added, “It was one of the most profound moments where I went, ‘I’ve got to get a life,’ and at the same time, I’m holding this gold statue where you go, ‘This is, this is it. This is the highest sort of prize you can get in our industry.’ And so grateful and yet so lonely.”

Describing her mood in one word, Kidman said, “Weird, is what I felt.”

“I’d love to be able to just, you know, be wrapped in somebody’s arms right now,” she added. “I’d love to be around now, something that feels really, ‘Oh, okay. This is my real life.’”

Kidman and Cruise—who married in 1990 and split in 2001—have two children, Isabella and Connor. Kidman would later marry Keith Urban in 2006; they share two daughters, Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret. They split in 2025 and finalized their divorce in 2026 after nearly 20 years of marriage.

Thursday’s podcast episode wasn’t the first time Kidman has opened up about her Oscar night. In 2024, she told Dave Karger for his book 50 Oscar Nights, “I was struggling with things in my personal life, yet my professional life was going so well. That’s what happens, right?”

“I’m not a big party girl, so I was going to skip the Vanity Fair party, and everyone was like, ‘You’ve got to go,’” she added. “‘You’ve got to walk through the party carrying your Academy Award.’ I said, ‘That just feels like gloating, and it doesn’t feel humble.’ Like, what? You can’t walk through carrying the award! That feels really inappropriate. They’re like, ‘That’s what you do.’”

She ultimately attended the party and said, “I literally walked in, carried it around, was completely overwhelmed, emotional, shaking, and I didn’t enjoy it. I was almost apologetic, which is so stupid. I wish I could have enjoyed it more.”

After the party, “I went home and ended up ordering takeout and eating it on the floor of the Beverly Hills Hotel,” she told Karger. “I sat on the floor of the hotel eating French fries and a burger with my family and went to bed. That’s when it hit me. I went, ‘I need to find my love—I need a love in my life.’ Because this is supposed to be when you go, ‘This is ours.’”

“I went to bed alone,” she remembered. “I was in bed before midnight. If I ever won again, I’m telling you—I’d be out for 24 hours.”

Via: InStyle