Nicole Kidman, along with Ariana Grande, reflects on how fame has changed in the age of social media and what she’s learning from her own children as she navigates it.
In a candid conversation with Ariana Grande for Interview Magazinethe 58-year-old actress opened up about trying to adopt a certain kind of strength she sees in her teenage daughters.
Grande, now 32 and fresh off her role as Glinda in Wicked: Too Goodshared how overwhelming the shift to global superstardom felt for her.
She described it as a “huge adjustment” that came after her life changed in a “very drastic way.”
Kidman understood immediately, explaining that when fame hits early, “you get put in this fishbowl and everything gets dissected.”
She said it can quickly develop into overthinking, fear and hurt, until you start feeling, “Now I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to venture into this world.”
Kidman said the tug of war between gratitude and pressure is universal, but she believes young people today navigate it differently.
As a mother of four, Bella, 32, and Connor, 30, with Tom Cruise, and Sunday Rose, 17, and Faith Margaret, 14, with Keith Urban, she has seen her youngest daughters deal with online scrutiny in a way she never could at their age.
“I think they have an armor that we didn’t get,” she said. Growing up without social media meant she never developed the resilience her daughters seem to have naturally.
According to Kidman, “The very, very young now have already gone, ‘We know exactly how to handle this.’ They don’t take a lot of things personally. They shrug it off.”
Grande admitted that she sometimes wishes she had that same ease, saying she wants “a little dose of that” confidence. Kidman immediately agreed: “We need that lesson.”
Grande added that trying to constantly maintain that mindset could feel like too much, explaining that at times she realized, “This is my ego doing this.”
She questioned whether the emotional “dance” that comes with public attention should really be part of being an artist.
Kidman encouraged her to take what Grande called “the spiritually enlightened route,” but the singer admitted she still loves the idea of speaking freely, just like younger generations do.
“I’d actually rather go the cool young route and just say what’s on my mind sometimes,” Grande said, though she added with a laugh that she usually ends up doing “a meditation and moving on.”
Together, the two stars offered a reasoned, honest look at how fame feels different today, and why the next generation might be handling it better than anyone expected.
