Nicole Kidman opens up about her 'strong sexuality' and the game she plays with Keith Urban

Nicole Kidman has had a lengthy, celebrated career, and much of that is due to her instincts. The 51-year-old actress opens up in the October issue of Marie Claire about the emotions that can occasionally rule her life.

Kidman shares that she and husband Keith Urban like to play a game with one another where they ask whether a particular artist leads with their head, heart or sexuality. As for Kidman herself, she says she is "a pretty even mix."

"But I’m probably dominated by [my heart],” she continues. "If you don’t come from a feeling place, you just end up with an enormous amount of technique. I have this [mind], but that can be overruled. It fluctuates too. I have a strong sexuality. It’s a huge part of who I am and my existence.”

Kidman, who is fresh off back-to-back Golden Globe and Emmy wins for her role in Big Little Lies, is loving the direction her career is taking lately.

"I feel probably more now than I ever have. I’m incredibly sensitive to the world and to the way in which we’re all navigating together as people," she says. "Artistically, I can make statements."

One of her strongest emotions is that of fear. Kidman admits that sometimes she lets her “crippling fear" consume her.

“At the same time, I was raised by stoics. It’s a philosophy, a way of behaving and being in the world, which I kind of don’t have,” she says of stoicism. "I have a little bit of it, but I have far more of, like, ‘Oh my God, how am I going to get through this? I can’t get through this! I can’t get up!’ And then I think, ‘Get up!’”

But being a mother has changed a lot of the way she handles her fears.

"I think once you have children, your resilience is built, and your ability to go, ‘OK, I can’t wallow… and I certainly can’t get into bed for a week and never get out,’” she explains.

One of her most daunting roles is in her upcoming film, Destroyer, in which she plays a tormented police detective.

"That was a hell place to exist,” she says of the role. "I was completely in pain, to the point my husband was like, ‘I cannot wait for this to end.’"

See photos of Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban together:

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