Kidman reflects on lonely childhood

Nicole Kidman had a lonely childhood because of her ginger hair and fair skin.

The Australian actress was instructed to spend a lot of time indoors as a child so that she wouldn't suffer from sunburn, causing her to spend more time reading books than playing with friends.

"In Australia you spend a lot of time indoors if you're fair-skinned because you burn. So my mother would keep me indoors and I'd read books," Nicole told OK! magazine. "Because of that, I wasn't able to go to the beach very often.

"I always felt like I wasn't the cool girl at school, so I'd stay indoors while everyone else was going to the beach and I'd sit and read books, but it resulted in a very vivid imagination that sustained me.

"As a child, I used to want to be the person in the book. That would be the thing, because I didn't like my life, so I wanted to be the character in the novel, and I still do that sometimes - but obviously less so. That's what I wanted desperately - that's the ramifications of being a fair-skinned redhead in Australia."