The Australian actress, 57, has four children - Sunday and Faith, with country singer Urban and Isabella and Connor, with her ex-husband Tom Cruise.
Kidman, whose mother Janelle Ann Kidman died earlier in 2024, told CBS News program Sunday Morning that in 2008 after giving birth to Sunday, she was "pretty much done" with the industry.
The actress had an Oscar win for The Hours as well an Academy Award nomination for Moulin Rouge at this point in her career.
"We were living on a farm, and that's when my mother said, 'I wouldn't give up completely. Keep a finger sort of in it'. And I'm like, 'No, no. I'm done now. I'm done'," she said.
"She's going, 'Just listen to me. Keep moving forward. Not saying that you have to do it to the level you've been doing it, but I wouldn't give it up completely'."
Kidman also said: "That came from a woman who was from a generation that didn't have the opportunities that I had, that she had helped create for her daughters.
"So that's probably something that she wished she'd had when she was little."
The actress had three further Oscar nods for roles in 2010's Rabbit Hole, 2017's Lion, and 2021's Being The Ricardos along with the successful HBO series Big Little Lies
She also spoke about her grief over losing her mother, which meant this year she was unable to receive her award for best actress at the Venice Film Festival in person for erotic thriller Babygirl.
"You don't have to have a time limit on it (grief)," Kidman said.
"You don't have to be all better by this time."
As well as starring in director Halina Reijn's Babygirl, about a chief executive having an affair with a young intern, played by Harris Dickinson, Kidman is currently in hit Netflix series The Perfect Couple.
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