Nicole: I wouldn't leave my bed after Tom split

Australian actress Nicole Kidman said today she was so humiliated after her split with ex-husband Tom Cruise that she had to be coaxed out of bed to go back to work.

Kidman, who went on to win an Oscar for her efforts in The Hours has, in the past, been reluctant to discuss the breakdown of her decade-long marriage to the Hollywood star.

“I sort of thought at that time that I was going to curl up in a ball and just never get out of bed,” she told Australian television’s Nine network. “But I have two kids and I had to get out of bed.”

Kidman and Cruise divorced in 2001. Since then Cruise has struck up a relationship with Spanish star Penelope Cruz and Kidman is widely reported to be dating rocker Lenny Kravitz.

Kidman was in her home town for the Australian premiere of her latest movie, the Civil War epic, Cold Mountain.

She thrilled fans in Sydney yesterday when she ditched the waiting media and made for the barricades, shaking hands and signing autographs for some who’d waited hours for her arrival.

With her trademark red curls dyed blonde and a gold Karl Lagerfeld dress, Kidman said she was happy to finally be home and would be spending Christmas in Sydney.

“I am relieved, relieved to have made it,” said Kidman, who considered giving up acting after her break with Cruise.

Local celebrities walked a white carpet rather than the traditional red one, in honour of the snowy-themed Cold Mountain, which was directed by Anthony Minghella and also starred Renee Zellweger and Jude Law.

Minghella, who also attended the premiere, said the film couldn’t have been made in North Carolina, where it was set, because the landscape had changed so much since its time period in the 1800s. Instead, much of the film was shot in Romania.

Kidman shrugged off the Oscar buzz surrounding her performance in the film as Ada, a woman born into privilege and forced to fend for herself, protecting her father’s farm from ruin and attack.

“I don’t buy into any of that until it happens,” she said.