Nicole Kidman planned to retire after giving birth to her daughter.

Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman

The 'Big Little Lies' star - who has Sunday, nine, and Faith, seven, with husband Keith Urban, and adopted kids Isabella, 24, and Connor, 22, with ex-husband Tom Cruise - was "pretty much done" with her career but her mother Janelle, talked her out of her decision, insisting she'd worked too hard to simply call it a day.

Speaking on 'Today', Nicole admitted: "I went through a period, particularly after I gave birth to Sunday, where I was pretty much done. I was pretty much going to finish up my career.

"I was just moving towards that place and then my mother said to me, 'I don't think you should retire or give up. I don't think that's your path. You have a creative fire and you should let it, if not burn, then simmer, until you want it to burn again.'

"She said to me, 'Everything in your life has always been hard won, you have never been given things on a platter. You had to audition and work and really... in terms of career-wise, it was a long, hard road.' She goes, 'You don't just abandon it.' "

Nicole previously admitted she wasn't getting the roles she wanted so she "made opportunities" for herself.

She explained: "That was the great thing about reading something like 'Big Little Lies' and going, 'We can get this made.' And I have to say for [Reese Witherspoon] and I to have taken that from nothing and all the way to here, we both said, 'We weren't getting the opportunities of great roles.' I mean, sometimes every now and then, but I think now, particularly for women, we're in a position where if it's not happening, you've got to make it happen for you.

"You've got to make opportunities for yourself and your friends. And that's pretty much what 'Big Little Lies' was. It was building opportunities for ourselves and our friends, and it just happened to become what it became, but that was because there was an enormous amount of passion behind it as well and optimism, actually."

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