Nicola Kidman has revealed she lied about her height to secure auditions early in her career.
The 56-year-old Hollywood actress told the Radio Times Podcast she would say she was shorter than she actually was when looking for work.
“I was told, ‘You won’t have a career. You’re too tall’,” said the Moulin Rouge and Eyes Wide Shut star.
Kidman, who was 5ft 9in by the time she was a teenager, said: “I’m 5ft 11in. I say 5ft 10.5in, but I’m 5ft 11in.
“I was teased. I was called ‘stalky’, and they would be like, ‘How’s the air up there?’
“‘You’re so much taller than I thought’, is what I get,” she continued.
“Or men sort of grappling with how high my heels should be.
“Whenever I go on the red carpet, I get sent shoes that are always so high. I’m like, ‘Do they have a kitten heel?’ I’m just like, ‘Oh gosh, I’m going to be the tallest person – the giraffe’.”
“It will bother me when I’m acting and I want to be small – but then there are times when I appreciate it and I can use it in my work,” she said.
“Hey, I’m incredibly grateful to be healthy and walking around. With that said, I’ve had knee issues and all sorts of things, partly because of my height.”
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Kidman recalled auditioning for a part in the musical Annie when she was a child.
She said: “I had to talk my way through the door, because they were like measuring you before you went in. I was mortified, I was over the mark. I think you had to be 5ft 2in and I was maybe 5ft 4in, and I was like, ‘Please’, and they did let me in.
“I didn’t get the part. I didn’t even get a call back, but at least I got to sing four lines of a chorus.”
She added: “But what I tell my daughters is that none of it matters. What matters is how you allow other people to either say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to you, and whether you accept that.
“Inner resilience as a human being, that’s the superpower, really.”
Kidman’s latest project is starring in upcoming Amazon Prime Video drama Expats, in which she plays the mother of a missing child in Hong Kong.
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