Nicole Kidman’s divorce from Tom Cruise influenced this Oscar-winning performance

“(My feelings) have to come out somehow.”

It’s only natural that actors bring some of their personal lives to their characters on screen. And that’s how it was Nicole Kidman back in 2001 during his divorce from Tom Cruise. In a new interview with GQKidman admitted that what she was going through at the time subconsciously infiltrated her work as an actress.

“It’s something out of the world. I think it (was) my youth talking,” she told the newspaper. At the time, Kidman was filming The hoursfor which she received an Oscar in 2003. “The subconscious and the subliminal are a strange thing.”

“It’s all there, everything is there,” Kidman said of letting her real life seep into her work. “(My feelings) have to come out somehow.”

However, she shut down a rumor about her divorce elsewhere in the interview. Kidman was asked about the viral – and iconic – meme of her in the pink top with her arms out to the side. The photo has long been believed to have been taken as she left her lawyer’s office after signing the papers, but Kidman clarified to GQ that the photo was actually taken of her in character on set.

“It’s not true,” she said of the anecdote that accompanies the photo.

“It wasn’t me; it was from a movie, it wasn’t real life,” she explained. “I know that picture!”

Kidman is happy married to husband Keith Urbanwith whom she shares two daughters Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret, but Kidman has recently reflected on “struggling” during her 2001 divorce.

“I was struggling with things in my personal life, but my professional life was going so well,” she told Dave Karger for his book 50 Oscar nightswhich hit the shelves earlier this year. “That’s what happens, right?”

She even got emotional on stage when she accepted an Oscar for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The hours. She recalled wanting to go home after the ceremony, but decided to attend the after party after being encouraged by peers. In retrospect, the actress admitted she wished she had enjoyed the moment more. After Vanity Fair party, Kidman returned to her hotel room, where she realized she wanted to find love again.

“I went home and ended up ordering takeout and eating it on the floor of the Beverly Hills Hotel,” she added. “I sat on the floor of the hotel eating 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 it’s supposed to be when you say, ‘This is ours.’”