Born in Honolulu in 1967, Nicole Kidman is the daughter of Janelle, a nurse, and Antony, a psychologist, per Harper’s Bazaar. At the time, the Australian family of four had relocated temporarily so that Antony could pursue his Ph.D. “When we moved to America, we had nothing. My parents had to go to the Salvation Army and get a donated mattress, which we all slept on,” Kidman told Glamour in 2021.
The “Far and Away” actor said that her dad, whose family struggled to make ends meet, paid it forward when he started seeing patients, offering his services for free to folks who couldn’t afford to pay. Despite her success, she doesn’t take anything for granted. “I’ve always been aware of privilege because both my parents came from nothing,” she added. Kidman noted that growing up in a socially-conscious home helped her “look at the world through different people’s eyes” (via Harper’s Bazaar).
Outside of the family, Kidman felt very alone, unhappy, and uncomfortable in her own skin, as she told Vanity Fair in 2002, “I looked very different from most of the other people,” she said. “I was very, very tall.” On top of that, she had super-curly hair, and she was too fair-skinned to sunbathe at the beach or swim in the neighbors’ pool. “I had a huge desire to be somebody else. I would think, ‘I’m not living the life I want to live.”
