Nicole Kidman was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Dr Antony David Kidman and Janelle Ann Kidman (n�e MacNeille), who were of Scottish and Irish descent respectively, and were both born in Australia. At the time, her father was a cancer research specialist in Washington, D.C. The family returned to Australia when Kidman was four years old, when her father took on a lectureship at the University of Technology, Sydney. Kidman has a younger sister born in 1970, Antonia.

Kidman started taking ballet lessons when she was four. This led to studies at Sydney's Australian Theatre for Young People, where she is now Patron, then at the Philip Street Theatre, where she majored in voice production and theatre history. Living in Longueville, New South Wales, she studied at North Sydney Girls High School, but dropped out when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer; Kidman concentrated on her family responsibilities until her mother's recovery.

Her first appearance on film came in 1983 when, as a 15-year-old, she appeared in the Pat Wilson music video for the song "Bop Girl". By the end of the year she had secured a supporting role in the television series Five Mile Creek and four film roles, including BMX Bandits and Bush Christmas. During the 1980s she appeared in several Australian movies and TV series, notably including the soap opera A Country Practice, the mini-series Vietnam (1986), Emerald City (1988), and Bangkok Hilton (1989).

In 1989 she appeared in the thriller Dead Calm as Rae, the wife of naval officer John Ingram (Sam Neill), held captive on a Pacific Ocean yacht trip by the psychotic Hughie Warriner (Billy Zane). In 1990 she appeared opposite Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder, a stock car racing movie. After this, Kidman starred with Cruise in Ron Howard's Far and Away (1992). In 1995 Kidman featured in the ensemble cast of Batman Forever and later that year starred in To Die For, a satirical comedy that earned her praise from critics. She won a Golden Globe Award, and five other best actress awards for her portrayal of the murderous newscaster Suzanne Stone Maretto. Kidman and Cruise portrayed a married couple in Eyes Wide Shut in 1999, Stanley Kubrick's final film.

In 2001 Kidman received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in Moulin Rouge!, in which she played the courtesan Satine opposite Ewan McGregor. The same year she had a well-received starring role in the horror film The Others. While in Australia filming Moulin Rouge!, Kidman injured her knee, so that Jodie Foster had to replace her in the film Panic Room. The following year Kidman won critical praise for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this role, along with a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA, and numerous critics awards. In the same year she took a hand at film production for the film In the Cut. In 2003, Kidman starred in three very different films. Dogville, by Danish director Lars von Trier, an experimental film set on a bare soundstage. Secondly, she co-starred alongside Anthony Hopkins in the film adaptation of Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain. Many critics felt that both Kidman and Hopkins were miscast. Cold Mountain, a love story of two Southerners separated by the Civil War, was her final release that year, and garnered her a Golden Globe Award nomination.

In 2004, Kidman appeared in the critically panned remake of The Stepford Wives alongside Glenn Close, Faith Hill and Bette Midler. In September of the same year, Birth, in which the 37-year-old actress' character has an encounter with a 10-year-old boy (played by Cameron Bright) who attempts to convince her that he is a reincarnation of her dead husband, was met with a mixed reception primarily due to a scene where the boy strips and joins Kidman in the bathtub. Despite this, the film was nominated for the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, and Kidman was nominated for another Golden Globe Award. Kidman's two movies in 2005 were The Interpreter, directed by Sydney Pollack, and Bewitched, co-starring Will Ferrell, based on the 1960s TV sitcom of the same name, which fared abysmally with critics and at the box office.

Kidman met Tom Cruise on the set of their 1990 movie, Days of Thunder. Cruise was married to actress Mimi Rogers at the time, and he and Kidman began an affair. Cruise divorced Rogers, and the couple married on Christmas Eve 1990 in Telluride, Colorado.

Cruise and Kidman adopted two children, daughter Isabella Jane (b. December 22, 1993) and son Connor Antony (b. January 17, 1995), and lived in Los Angeles, Australia, Colorado, and New York City.

Cruise left Kidman while she was three months pregnant, just before their 10th wedding anniversary. She subsequently had a miscarriage.[1]. The marriage was dissolved in 2001. The reasons for the dissolution have never been made public.

The 2003 film Cold Mountain was plagued by rumors that an on-set affair between Kidman and co-star Jude Law was responsible for the breakup of his marriage. Both vehemently denied the allegations, and Kidman eventually won an undisclosed sum from the British tabloids that pushed the story. She donated the money to a Romanian orphanage in the town where the movie was filmed.

She met musician Lenny Kravitz in 2003 and dated him into 2004.

Kidman met country singer Keith Urban at a Hollywood event honouring Australians in January 2005 and the two were married on Sunday June 25, 2006, at the Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel in the grounds of St Patrick's Estate, Manly in Sydney.