Nicole Kidman has admitted she is shocked now to think of how young she was when she married Tom Cruise.

The Moulin Rouge! star, 49, got married to Top Gun actor Tom in 1990 when she was 23, and the couple adopted daughter Isabella in 1992 and son Connor in 1995 before splitting in 2001.

She told Red magazine: “I was so young when I got married. I look back now and I’m like, ‘What?’ You look at Taylor Swift, I mean how old is she? She’s 26. I had two kids by the time I was 27 and I’d been married for four years. But that’s what I wanted.”

Nicole and Tom married young (Michael Crabtree/PA)

Nicole married again in 2006 and has two more daughters, Faith and Sunday Rose, with country music star husband Keith Urban.

The pair celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary in June and Nicole acknowledged: “That’s really big for us. It was really up and down for the first three months.

“We’ve been through a lot for 10 years. And we’re stronger than ever. I say that while touching wood, and no way in a boastful way. I just say it with wonder. Absolute wonder.”

Nicole and Keith (Jordan Strauss/AP)

She continued: “When you’re older, you’ve been through things, you’ve made mistakes. So you come into it [a second marriage] still giddy, but wanting it to last.

“We always consider the ‘us’. We say, ‘Is this going to be good for us?’ It’s the simplest phrase, but it works.”

Nicole added that she found being a mother of four a very emotional challenge.

“My husband says I’m ‘deeply maternal’. I like to take care of people. It brings me a lot of joy,” she said.

Nicole is the November cover star of Red (Red)

The Paddington actress went on: “Motherhood is about the journey… There are going to be incredible peaks and valleys, whether you are an adopting mother or a birth mother. What a child needs is love.

“It’s not necessarily great for a child to have an intensely emotional mother. And I don’t want to be a helicopter parent so I’m trying to…balance the intensity of the love. It’s really hard.”

The full interview appears in the November issue of Red. Click here for further exclusive content.