Nicole Kidman's daughters impose school run sweatpants ban on mom

Hollywood superstar Nicole Kidman's daughters refuse to allow her to dress down away from the red carpet.

The Oscar-winning actress, 49, has two little girls, Sunday Rose, 8, and Faith Margaret, 5, with her musician husband Keith Urban, 49.

According to Nicole, her offspring demand she looks as good picking them up from school as she does when promoting one of her movies.

"I would go to the school to pick them up, and they'd be like, 'Please don't pick me up in sweatpants or jeans,'" she told Entertainment tonight at the New York City premiere of her new movie Lion on Wednesday (16Nov16). "They're like, 'Can you just get dressed up and do your hair and put on makeup and wear heels?' They like that, they're girlie girls."

Lion, which is based on a true story, sees Nicole play Sue Brierling, an Australian woman who adopts Saroo, a little boy who becomes separated from his family as a child, from an orphanage in India.

As an adult Saroo, played by Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel, attempts to find his long lost family using the Google Earth app.

Nicole, who has two adult children she adopted during her previous marriage to Tom Cruise, said her status as an adoptive mother helped her to emotionally connect with the film and the man whose life story it is based on.

"Of course I reacted to being the mother of adopted children but for me this (the film Lion) is about the powers of mothers," she told Australian broadcaster SBS at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year (16). "I said to Saroo, 'You have two mothers. Lucky boy!' This was very emotional for me, obviously."

At the Manhattan premiere husband Keith praised his wife's mothering skills, saying she's the expert parent in the Kidman-Urban household.

"(She's) an incredible mom," Keith said. "Loving, maternal, and (she's) teaching me a lot about how to raise children, especially girls.I have no reference for girls, I grew up in a house of boys, so it's quite the learning curve."

Lion debuts on 25 November (16).