Nicole Kidman preps for Oscars by going to church: 'It centers me'

Actress Nicole Kidman revealed that her pre-Oscars preparations included attending church on Sunday, which she said “centers” her and is part of her regular routine.

The 58-year-old actress attended the 2026 Oscars on Sunday night, where she presented the Best Picture award alongside her “Moulin Rouge!” co-star Ewan McGregor. Kidman and McGregor appeared on stage together in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the 2001 film directed by Baz Luhrmann. 

During a pre-Oscars dinner at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Saturday night, Kidman spoke with Variety about how she planned to get ready for the 98th Academy Awards. 

“This is crazy, but I will go to church in the morning,” the Australian American actress told the entertainment news outlet. “We’ll be squeezing it in. … It just centers me. It’s what I do on a Sunday.”

Kidman attended the pre-Oscars dinner on Saturday with her two daughters — Faith, 15, and Sunday, 17, as Variety reported. The actress shares Faith and Sunday with ex-husband, Keith Urban, a country music singer and songwriter. She also shares two other children, Bella and Connor, with ex-husband Tom Cruise. 

In response to a question about whether the daughters she shares with Urban would attend any of the parties after the Oscars, Kidman said they would not. 

“No, it’s a Sunday night,” she said. “They’re on spring break, but we’ll all be sort of just tucking ourselves in, go home, have a bath and go to bed.”

The interview with Variety is not the first time Kidman has spoken publicly about her religious beliefs.

Speaking with Vanity Fair in May 2019, the Oscar winner told the magazine that a lot of her friends tease her about her faith in God. At the time of the interview, Kidman was married to Urban, and they attended church as a family. 

“That’s how we are raising our children. Keith has his own beliefs, but he comes, too. I had a very Catholic grandmother, and I was raised praying, so that had [a] massive impact,” she said. “I wouldn’t say it’s absolutism, there’s constant questioning — I’m a willful, feisty girl. For me, it’s very important that I don’t have judgment. My dad would always say, ‘Tolerance is the most important thing.’”

During a November 2018 interview with Allure, Kidman, who was raised in an Irish Catholic family and once considered becoming a nun, frequently wears a diamond-studded crucifix, a gift from her grandmother that she almost never takes off. 

“I’m spiritual in the sense that I absolutely believe in God,” Kidman said. “I loved the idea of being a nun. Obviously, I did not choose to go that path, but I was very drawn to it.”

Another celebrity who came from a Catholic background, singer Gwen Stefani, has also spoken publicly about her belief in God. 

During a recent conversation with evangelist Jeff Cavins on the “Hallow: Prayer & Meditation” podcast, Stefani said that a “miracle” pregnancy and an atheist friend’s spiritual journey helped her reconnect with her faith. 

The singer and co-founder of the band No Doubt remembered being 44 and feeling “desperate” to have another baby with her then-husband, Gavin Rossdale. 

Around the same time, Stefani started working with a Jewish man who, while growing up in Israel, had been an atheist but later converted. The man experienced a “big epiphany awakening” after studying the Torah, and Stefani said their conversations prompted her to reflect on her own beliefs.

Then Stefani’s son, Kingston, approached her one day and said that he wanted her to have another baby.

“I said, ‘I’m sorry, your mommy’s too old to have a baby now,’ you know,” the multiple Grammy Award-winning singer recalled. 

“He was like, ‘Please God let my mom have a baby,’ and I was just sitting there going, ‘Wow, look at my little boy! He’s praying for me, like he was doing it every night, and I never asked him to do that, never taught him that, really,” she recalled.

“I think it was like four weeks later, and I was pregnant with Apollo, who, you know, I had at 44 years old naturally. Totally a full-on gift. And that was the first miracle,” the mother of three said.