Nicole Kidman Gets Personal About Her Beauty And Wellness Routine

As studios began to favor streaming, she barreled onward unflinchingly. Her work now spans feature films and binge-able limited series, like Big Little Lies or The Perfect Couple. Kidman has become one of the most in-demand actresses and managed to sustain a rigorous pace of production—yet it takes more than just talent to succeed in Hollywood; it takes resiliency.

“I think having a career that has lasted this long is what has taught me about resilience,” Kidman says of her forty-year career, seated in a suite at The Maybourne Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA. “I’ve been told ‘no’ so many times in my career. It’s very much about being brave, trying things, being willing to be criticized and being willing to not be stopped by that criticism.”

She tells me that it was her mother that taught her to re-frame the experience of rejection into opportunity. “Statistically, anything that hasn’t worked out for me has actually led me to something else that I’m far more grateful I got to experience,” she says. “That is also [a part of] resilience. It’s not setting your sights on what you think you’re meant to have; it’s being willing to explore and [staying] open—particularly as you get older.”

If any actress warrants being called “larger than life,” it is Kidman, whose onscreen oeuvre has knit the star into the collective consciousness of our time. She is the very picture of refined elegance in person, wearing a cream-colored cashmere sweater and trousers with her long, blonde hair worn straight and flowing. Just as she appears in films, her skin is porcelain and her eyes are vibrantly blue.

The night before, she was fêted at a gala to celebrate her new role as ambassador for the luxury skincare and cosmetics line, Clé de Peau Beauté. As a celebrity that is extremely discerning with her brand endorsements, this is quite a big deal. She has partnered with the luxury Swiss watch brand Omega, and she tells me that a fashion house will soon be named. (It is rumored to be Chanel, although this is unconfirmed.)

As for Clé de Peau Beauté’s reputation, the Shiseido-owned luxury beauty brand is widely-revered as being pricy, but worth it. Their $75 full-coverage foundation, which comes in at a hefty $285 per tub. As celebrity makeup artist Carissa Ferreri attests, the creamy, nourishing foundation (which she calls “the best”) genuinely lives up to the hype it garners. Kidman herself relies upon the uniquely hydrating formula to tend to her famously fair complexion, which she explains is so prone to dryness that it can flake at times.

This type of proven industry merit is the only way to snag an A-list ambassador of Kidman’s caliber. The Academy Award-winning actress has long-been established as one of the most prominent beauties of our time; her glamour simply a fact of life to society en masse. This is precisely why it is shocking to learn that even she was once self-critical beneath the weight of cultural beauty standards.

“I look at my [younger self] and I go, ‘Why didn’t you love yourself when you were younger?’ I was very harsh on myself because my looks at that time were not the looks of the generation. I was very fair, I was very tall, I wasn’t curvy—I was all the things that were not of that era,” she tells me, recalling how her height was a particular focus of her ire. “I used to always want to be five-foot-three, five-foot-four. I spent my whole life not being able to wear really high heels.”

Wisdom has come with age. It is evident in her ability to look back and reflect upon how she not only made peace with these insecurities, but leveraged them into strengths to forge her own path forward. She explains how she began to define for herself what she found to be beautiful—much of which, she points out, is based on subjective personality anyway—and her focus shifted away from the desire to conform. She then found joy in surrendering to the creative process, her unique looks becoming a tool in this process rather than definitive of her worth.

“I’m the mold. I’m open to letting people explore my body or change me or make me into something else for fashion, because I love couture. I love being part of creations, and I think that’s the actor part of me,” she says. “You can teach me how to wear my hair, or change my look, or how to do my makeup, or just expand me; not be set on looking one particularly way. Then I get home, take everything off, lather myself in cream, snuggle into bed and read a book.”

Kidman just eloquently summed up a universally relatable aspect of the coming-of-age process—grappling with the insecurities and self-comparisons that inevitably arise from existing in a social environment. But speaking as a woman that has matured beyond that vantage point, her perspective conveys genuine growth from having lived the process so consciously. It is almost spiritual-sounding: by releasing the desire to change her appearance, she embraced her calling as the ultimate muse. Frankly, what she refers to as expansion might also be called transcendence.

When I point out that she is truly regarded as a beauty icon, she insists that she does not feel that way inside. “I so don’t feel it. I think that’s part of it,” she says. It serves as a powerful reminder of her humanness, and also that none of the resplendence we project onto her is by chance: she has worked hard for the career and status she has achieved. Even if she is iconic by society’s standards, her “no-airs” charisma (which could also partly be due to her Australian roots) only adds to her relatability and grace.

As for the human side of the star, she tells me she loves reading—she calls it an “escape.” But she also finds immense connection through nature, which, funnily enough, calls to mind her role as a wellness guru in Nine Perfect Strangers. In real life, she swears by “Forest Bathing,” walking through the forest, surrounded by plants and trees, and being immersed in the negative ions they emit. (She is not alone in this conviction; there is an entire Japanese wellness tradition known as shinrin-yoku that is based upon biophilia and the benefits of mindful immersion in the forest.)

Twice, Kidman mentions her affinity for swimming in the ocean. “If you can get in the ocean, get in the ocean,” she affirms. For a brief moment, the topic switches to ocean conservation, revealing an environmentalist side to her personality. But it is an organic transition and not-at-all preachy; when she alludes to keeping plastic out of the oceans, it is an understandable concern coming from someone that is regularly immersed in it.

She is a multi-faceted being with one of the most successful careers on the planet. When you attempt to deconstruct the making of this icon, there really is something to the adaptable resiliency she embodies. Almost paradoxically, her ability to transform so seamlessly into a mercurial roster of roles emanates from a strong, unwavering core of self-actualization. She speaks from a place of self-assurance, but humbly so. Her responses are insightful and magnetic, but she is the farthest possible thing from arrogant or snobbish.

This is, after all, a woman that would prefer to jump in the ocean—or have a cold plunge at home—versus visiting a high-end spa. Though she calls spa-going “fun” back in the day, it was a luxury she gave up after becoming a mother. There is a supreme balance to her personality: she adeptly straddles the acme of high society, yet reconnects with her essence by grounding in nature and being hands-on with her family.

It is similar to the idiom of having your “head in the clouds, but your feet on the ground.” Or, with regards to the beauty industry, tending to your “inner glow” just as much as your “outer glow.” It is thus fitting that at the beginning of the interview, she tells me about the Clé de Peau Beauté creams, cosmetics and even the retin-A that she uses to tend to her complexion—remarking how with age, she realized how her self-care regimen neglected her hands in her youth.

But in our final moments together, she reveals a glimpse of how she tends to her inner glow, as well. “I never thought I’d become a hot yoga girl, but the glow up after hot yoga...” Kidman tells me. “I do it with my daughters sometimes, and we say, ‘Let’s go for a glow-up.’” The post-yoga aura is, of course, very real. But I also get the feeling that at least part of their radiance comes from the joy of being together as family. The Academy Award-winning movie star contains multitudes, after all; at home among the glitz and the glamour, but making her home with her loved ones.

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