Fascinated by snakes!

Hollywood star Nicole Kidman said she thought slipping into different acting roles is similar to the life of a snake. The actress, who has played a series of ultra-stressed women on screen, including the tortured writer Virginia Woolf, said she was fascinated by the slithering reptiles due to the way they moved and constantly shed their skin.

Kidman said she found snakes ‘alluring’ and was fixated by the way ‘they slither and move’, and by the notion of shedding skins. She shared, “You can become and try different things, all the time, which is what excites me.”

Asked if she felt as if she was still reinventing herself at this stage of her 40-year acting career, she said, “I don’t even see it as reinvention. I think it’s more like different facets that you discover that are in existence, but you are attuned to the discovery of them. Yes, I remain very open and still very passionate about what I do, and curious. And those elements haven’t been dampened. You can either become more rigid as you become older, but you can also become more free.”

Born in Hawaii but raised on the North Shore of Sydney, Australia, Kidman said her obsession with snakes was also probably linked to the deadly wildlife that packs her homeland. She added: “We’re used to it. You dive into the swimming pool, and we’re like, ‘be careful of the funnel-webs that can form a bubble on the bottom of the swimming pool’.”