Nicole Kidman admits no dress has ever changed her life – wait, what? – but that one particular look from her decades of red carpet couture has a special place in her heart.

At last year’s Oscars the Big Little Lies star knocked it out of the park with a royal blue Armani Privé gown which impressed her as much as it did fashion critics.

For a start, the vibe of that night was different because Kidman wasn’t up for an award. “When you’re nominated, you’re very emotionally invested,” she wrote in a personal essay for Harper’s Bazaar.

“But going to the Oscars as a presenter was just plain fun.”

Kidman’s essay gives an insider glimpse into what it’s like to have, oh, Giorgio Armani knock up something for you, what she does when she gets home from a Hollywood night out and who she gets “starstruck” by: Jane Fonda and Clint Eastwood!

Nicole, 52, made the whole shebang sound like no big deal while waxing lyrical at the same time.

“The fairy-tale aspect of wearing couture is a glorious sidebar to my career. Golly, it is still lovely to me,” Kidman wrote.

“I always say, “I’m going to the ball,” when I’m walking a red carpet because it really does have that Cinderella quality.”

“Cinderella” Kidman stops to chat on the red carpet at the March 4 event. Photo: Getty

How can you try it at home? Starting with Armani is a good move, Kidman said, because “they really take care of the details, like how to make a giant bow sit” when you have to sit in a dress for four hours.

The dress in question was almost like pulling on activewear, the star recalled: “Strangely enough, despite the boning on the corset top, this dress was unbelievably comfortable.”

She spilled to Harper’s on how only two fittings were done (“The team knows my body so well”) and that the night of the Oscars, singer husband Keith Urban, 51, was working, so Kidman prepped for the red carpet at a hotel.

On the way to the Dolby Theatre, stuck in traffic, she rolled down her car window to say hi to people on a tour bus: “I love moments where you can break down that whole barrier and just meet people.”

The barrier goes up again though, Kidman said, when the awards have been handed out.

“I rarely go out afterward. I’d rather get home to see my kids,” she said. Yeah, you can see that the Vanity Fair party would get old hat real fast.

Safely away from the horrid crush, Kidman carefully takes off everything.

“I fold the dress and am very protective of it because obviously it’s art. Just like with Cinderella, everything needs to be returned to its maker! Then I run a hot bath,” she wrote.

“When I go to bed, I wonder, ‘Was that a dream?’”

Kidman was “comfortable” enough to kick back. Photo: Getty

Kidman isn’t the only one in the family putting pen to paper to reveal snippets about her private life.

Urban’s 2018 song Gemini – inspired by his wife, he has said – contains the lyric,”She’s a maniac in the bed but a brainiac in her head.”

Wow. Is it true? The question was put to Kidman on The Kyle & Jackie O Show this week and she bit.

“I don’t censor his art, if I can be a muse for it,” Nicole said.

“It is embarrassing, but at the same time, it’s better than saying, ‘God, I’m so bored. Make an effort, Nicole!’”