Three Of a Kind

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The pace of work on the $64 million project was leisurely. "Stanley didn't work under the gun," says Kidman. "Time was the most important thing to him. He was willing to give up location to save money, but he wasn't willing to give up time." Obsessed with getting it just right, Kubrick wrote and rewrote the script while they were shooting it, sometimes faxing changes to his stars, often as late as 4 a.m.

"Stanley knew that's how he worked best. He was not indulgent," says Cruise. Even so, there were moments when they wondered what they'd got themselves into. Says Kidman: "Sometimes it was very frustrating because you were thinking: 'Is this ever going to end?' " The long shoot, and its subject matter, eventually took a toll physically on Cruise. He is reluctant to talk about his ulcer, fearing the inevitable headlines--kubrick gives cruise an ulcer!--but confides that he woke up one night early in the production in terrible pain. "I didn't want to tell Stanley. He panicked. I wanted this to work, but you're playing with dynamite when you act. Emotions kick up. You try not to kick things up, but you go through things you can't help."

Kidman could see the pressure building. "We were both dealing with jealousy and sex in a way that it was always lurking around. We shot for 10 1/2 months, but we were there for a year and half. That's quite a strange thing to always have with you, day in and day out. You never quite walk away from it. Stanley as well."

The actors say it is difficult these days to see the movie because it was always the three of them worrying and plotting together, but they are determined to preserve Kubrick's final legacy. The film's climactic orgy scene had threatened to earn it a restrictive NC-17 rating. According to the film's producer, Jan Harlan, Kubrick realized that he would have to make adjustments to earn an R rating. Rather than cut his film, he came up with the idea of digitally adding figures to partly hide the most explicit 65 seconds of the scene when it is shown to U.S. audiences. (The rest of the world will see it as Kubrick originally made it.) "There is nothing in the picture that Stanley didn't approve," vows Cruise.

Before his death, Kubrick cut the tantalizing 90-sec. trailer of Tom and Nicole, naked and necking. He knew it would have everyone guessing: Do they? Or don't they? The Cruises aren't telling. "Stanley loved ambiguity," says Kidman. As in all the Kubrick films, the answer to Eyes Wide Shut lies in the seeing.