Nicole Kidman On Her Unfortunate Humanity: ‘I Really Want to Be a Unicorn’

By Bobby Finger  |  October 5, 2015 | 1:50pm
CelebritiesDirt Bag

In the October issue of Interview, Nicole Kidman was interviewed by Lee Daniels, the man who directed her in 2012’s absolutely bonkers The Paperboy. When discussing why he loves directing women, Daniels says:

Here’s the thing, when you find a rare breed, like yourself, like Taraji, like Halle Berry … I call you guys unicorns, because you’re beautiful to look at, but if you detect bullshit, you’ll nip me, you’ll nip anybody who’s coming at you with bullshit. You don’t play around. You take this craft very seriously. It’s what separates you, what separates an actor from an artist.

Kidman responds in the most wonderfully Nicole Kidman way – succinctly, and without a hint of detectable humor.

I really want to be a unicorn.

She is, of course, referring to Daniels’s definition of ‘unicorn’ and not the mythical animal, but it’s still wonderful to imagine her saying “I really want to be a unicorn” while roaming around her Australian farm.

Later, in their most revealing exchange, Daniels asks Kidman about her childhood.

DANIELS: Did you think you were a freak? Did you think you were different?
KIDMAN: Definitely. I would read huge novels—I read War and Peace when I was 12 years old—because that was a way to get lost in another world and another life. My mother would keep me in, out of the sun, because I was so pale, and she would give me books to read. So I read most of the Russians: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy. I had a reading list. Classic novels: French, Russian, English. And I just slowly crossed them off the list. Around that time is when my imagination was piqued. I found the joy of becoming a character through those novels.

The interview isn’t as quite as wild as I had hoped, but is worth a complete read.

[Interview]

I’m thinking that, I don’t know, maybe the cast of Suffragette could have thought a little longer before agreeing to be photographed while wearing these shirts for last week’s cover of Time Out London.

Rebellion is a choice. Slavery is…well.

[ONTD]

Pray for Meredith.

  • Kaley Cuoco is doing just fine. [Us Weekly]
  • I think Rachel Zoe might be suggesting that she doesn’t think baby girls poop or vomit? [People]
  • Emily Blunt mostly became an American because it made taxes easier. [Us Weekly]
  • Tom Cruise didn’t attend his daughter’s wedding because the groom wasn’t a Scientologist. [Radar Online]
  • Cathriona White overdosed on pills prescribed for Jim Carrey. [TMZ]
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Image via Getty / Shutterstock.

 
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