Nicole Kidman "wasn't able to handle reality" after divorcing Tom Cruise

Recalling how she coped, the 48-year-old star said: "I was running from my life at that time. I wasn't able to handle the reality of my life and as an actor, you have this wonderful thing where you can go and get lost in somebody else's life and become somebody else for a period of time. And when I look back on it, I really see that. Out of that came work that sort of was applauded and so that was an interesting thing for me."

The Australian star, who has adopted children Isabella, 22, and Connor, 20, with Tom, won the Best Actress Oscar for 'The Hours' two years later in 2003, but had an "epiphany" shortly afterwards.

Speaking at the Women In the World Summit in London yesterday (08.10.15), she explained: "I was sitting in the Beverly Hills Hotel and it was all extraordinary and I was the loneliest I've ever been. And that was a very strange thing to have happened and it was a fantastic thing to have happened because I was jolted out of this I suppose need or desire to say, 'This is gonna heal me' and it didn't. And then I went, 'I need to really hone in on what I want as a woman and for my life.' "

The 'Paddington' star married Keith, with whom she has daughters Sunday, seven, and Faith, four, in 2006, and insists she feels the same way about all four of her children.

She said: "There's no difference, because you love...and the love is so profound and it's once you have that child and you go, 'Ah, I'm willing to die for this person.' And you see and you feel that, and that, that changes everything, doesn't it? I love children."