Nicole Kidman recalls the moment she almost retired from acting a few years into Keith Urban marriage

If things had gone a certain way, Nicole Kidman’s path in Hollywood could’ve looked VERY different.

The Oscar-winning actress, 58, is frequently cited as not only one of Hollywood’s busiest stars, but also among its most versatile, often praised especially for her decision to work with female filmmakers and creators.

However, that whole path could’ve actually been cut almost two decades short, if Nicole had gone through with her original decision to retire a few years after marrying Keith Urban and welcoming their first daughter together in 2008.

Janelle’s advice

During an appearance at HISTORYTalks on Saturday, April 18 with Hoda Kotb, per The Hollywood Reporter, Nicole opened up extensively about her late mom, Janelle Ann Kidman, who passed away in September of 2024, who was a guiding force for much of her life.

One of the specific moments she cited was in 2008, after she’d given birth to her daughter Sunday, and good roles were getting sparse as she entered her 40s, and she considered retiring from acting.

“I’d moved to Nashville, I was pregnant, I had my daughter, and I was going to retire,” she remembered. “My mother was like, ‘You need to still give your total water. I wouldn’t completely give up. You’ve been doing this since you were little — it’s your makeup.'”

“And thank God she said that,” Nicole continued, and that inspired her to think: “Well, what can I do that isn’t as taxing on me so that I can be present for my child? And producing suddenly became a much, much more interesting road.”

© Getty Images

Venturing down a different path

Nicole especially noted that it was when she stumbled upon the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole that she was inspired to start her own production company, Blossom Films. The film adaptation came out in 2010 and earned her a third Best Actress Oscar nomination.

“I read a review of a play called Rabbit Hole, which was about the loss of a child, and I thought, what a wonderful thing to do having just given birth — this is how strange I am to go and to do a film about the thing I am most terrified of — to go and connect to the people that I now have such deep compassion for and want to understand and want to help,” she said during her talk.

© Getty Images

“No one wanted to give us money. It was a $3.5 million film. We had to beg for every cent. But we got it made. It was scrappy, and it was a passion, and that was the beginning of my producing career.”

While her marriage to Keith ended in 2026 after 20 years, their two teen daughters are successfully venturing into public life on their own, and Nicole stuck to her promise of producing female-led projects.

© Getty Images

“There’s so many more opportunities,” the Margo’s Got Money Troubles star explained. “I have two shows right now where primarily it’s women in the director’s seat, the writer’s seat, the showrunner’s seat, and stories about women. That 20 years ago was not the case. So that is enormous change.”