Nicole Kidman is working hard to encourage more women into the film industry.

Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman

The 'Big Little Lies' star has pledged to work with a female director every 18 months as she wants to be an "advocate" for women and their Hollywood careers.

She said: "As an actor you're only as good as the things you're offered. And there just weren't any women offering me things. So when you dissect that, you realise there aren't women offering you things because they don't have the opportunities. I work to raise money for women's cancers; I use my voice for violence against women. And so I was like, 'I need to be part of the movement that will, hopefully, change the statistics in my field.'

"I also can't be talking about it and not doing it. Because, to be an advocate, you have to actually put things into action. It's like, 'OK, Rebecca. You're making a movie? Let's go.' 'OK, Karyn Kusama' - I'm working with her next - 'we may not have an enormous budget, but let's go do it. I'll get down in the trenches with you.'"

And the 50-year-old actress - who has Isabella, 24, and Connor, 22, with her ex Tom Cruise and Sunday, nine, and Faith, six, with her husband Keith Urban - has a "deep passion" for acting and will continue doing it as a career until she loses that love for it.

She added to the December issue of Glamour magazine: "I would read. And I would morph into the characters and their emotions. And then I started going to a local drama school when I was, like, 10 or 11.

"And even at that age, things would just flow. When my toe would enter the water with something like Nora in 'A Doll's House', somehow - without really understanding what I was doing - I would grasp the character's inner conflict. It was very pure. I still have that deep passion and love for what I do. And when I don't, I won't do it anymore."

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