Nicole Kidman has become less "awkward" since having her daughters.
Nicole Kidman
The 'Aquaman' actress - who adopted her now-adult kids Isabella, 25, and Conor, 23, with ex-husband Tom Cruise, and has Sunday, 10, and seven-year-old Faith with husband Keith Urban - feels an "incredible joy" knowing there are people who rely on her so much and thinks being a parent has helped her to "open up" more.
She said: "Being a parent can bring you to your knees. I feel that as a mother, I have this sort of bottomless well of emotion inside of me.
"The idea of not being able to protect my child - or have my child not have me there when she needs me - is devastating.
"And on the flip side, there's this incredible joy of having this little being who is so reliant on you and who looks up to you and who you are there in the world for.
"It's opened me up in so many ways because my own natural state in the world is to be a bit awkward, a bit shy, but to have my children there has given me a much better ability to connect to people, because a situation isn't necessarily about me, it's about them."
Despite her and her husband's success, the 51-year-old actress insists she and Keith lead a very "normal" life.
She told Britain's HELLO! magazine: "Keith and I actually have a very normal life when I'm not working.
"We say this over and over again and people always go, 'Yeah right', but we do.
"We live in Nashville, not Los Angeles, and we live there for a reason.
"I like the peacefulness of it there, I like the solitude and being able to step into the celebrity life for a moment when I need to, and then back out to all the real day-to-day things.
"It's not that I don't appreciate or have gratitude for the incredible things I have been given, but I also like to step away from it when I need to and keep things simple."
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