Nicole Kidman’s knife-throwing scenes were “too frightening” to include in Paddington
The Australian actress says she became “obsessed” with training and can do far more than is seen in the film
Nicole Kidman stars as the villain in the new Paddington film, but admits her knife-throwing skills were so scary, many scenes had to be cut from the final edit.
“I got obsessed,” the actress tells Graham Norton of learning to throw knives to play Millicent. “They ended up cutting it out of the movie because it was too frightening. I can do a lot more than what’s in the film.”
But on reflection, the actress admits it was the right call. “I actually recorded myself turning the knife in my hand and when I watched it back even I thought, ‘Wow!’”
Indeed, Kidman admits she’d hoped this would finally be a film her kids could see but jokes, “then I realised maybe they can’t come and see it because I am chasing a bear with knives – confusing for a three-year old because they thought I was playing the bear’s mummy! I had to let them down gently.”
The nature of the film's content has already been the subject of media attention after the British Board of Film Classification awarded it a PG, rather than the U most were probably expecting for a film about the famous marmalade-loving bear.
The higher classification is due to "mild bad language" and "mild sex references" during a cross-dressing scene, although the BBFC have now changed their description to "innuendo." Co-star Hugh Bonneville joked at the time that the notes are "hilarious...I was scratching my head thinking 'what are the censors talking about?'"
Bonneville – who joins Kidman on the sofa – added to Norton: “I think it was a slow news day. Of course, the bear is put in peril and he crosses the ocean in a container ship and has worrying marmalade habits, but seriously, if you’ve got a young, sensitive child and you take him to the movies, of course it’s important you know the sort of things that are happening. The ‘sexual references’ which was code red was downgraded to ‘innuendo,’ and that’s largely to do with me in a frock!”
Read our review of Paddington here
