Nicole Kidman has revealed she felt it was her job "to be seen and not heard" during her marriage to Tom Cruise.
Finally opening up about her decade of marriage after a seven-year silence, Kidman said she questioned her worth while living in her superstar husband's shadow.
"I felt I became a star only by association," Kidman says in Glamour magazine.
"I thought, 'I don't deserve to be here'. We would go to the Oscars and I would think, 'I'm here to support him'.
"I felt it was my job to put on a beautiful dress and to be seen and not heard."
Kidman met Cruise on the set of 1990 car racing film Days of Thunder, and went on to star together in Far and Away and Eyes Wide Shut after their wedding.
See pictures from their marriage here
And despite winning a Golden Globe for best actress in 1995's To Die For, Kidman says she struggled with confidence alongside the Top Gun star.
"I didn't think [my early films] were very good, which is why I would always cower in the background," she said.
The 41-year-old enjoyed the high point of her career after their 2001 split, winning a string of award nominations for hits including Moulin Rouge!, The Hours, The Others and Cold Mountain.
However, she has been critically savaged in a string of flops since, including The Stepford Wives, Bewitched and The Golden Compass.
Kidman's upcoming lead in Baz Luhrmann's Australia is eagerly anticipated in both her native country and around the world.
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