Actress Nicole Kidman refused to use an offensive racial epithet in a film when requested to do so by its director, her British co-star has revealed.

Speaking on Radio 4's Front Row, David Oyelowo said the Oscar-winning star had been asked to say "the n-word" in The Paperboy by director Lee Daniels.

"She flatly refused," said Oyelowo, who is of Nigerian descent.

"She felt that was a bridge too far for her and I really respect her for doing that," the former Spooks star went on.

Kidman, 45, received a Golden Globe nomination for her work in The Paperboy, which is released in the UK on 15 March.

Set in Florida at the end of the 1960s, the film sees two reporters, played by Oyelowo and Matthew McConaughey, work to have a murderer's conviction quashed.

Their efforts are both helped and hindered by Kidman's character, a blowsy hairdresser who has won the trust of the felon through sexually explicit correspondence.

"Anyone who sees that movie will see Nicole Kidman did virtually everything else that Lee Daniels asked her to do," Oyelowo was heard telling Mark Lawson on Wednesday's Front Row.

"But she would not do that [say the n-word]."

It's a bit like making a holocaust movie and not having the Nazi's being nasty to the Jews as it's not acceptable today.

(Anyone seen The Pianist? Now there's an emotionally powerful film.)

Also it was not her who made this public. She was not seeking publicity for doing this.

Also it was not her who made this public. She was not seeking publicity for doing this.

It's a bit like making a holocaust movie and not having the Nazi's being nasty to the Jews as it's not acceptable today.

(Anyone seen The Pianist? Now there's an emotionally powerful film.)

Not all Germans were anti semetic, but enough were.

I can understand why she would not want to use it. It is still an offensive word to blacks. Therefore I can understand why she would refuse to say it. Also it was not her who made this public. She was not seeking publicity for doing this.