Thandie’s girl’s no Disney princess
NICO Parker, aged 14, threw her mother ( the actress Thandie Newton) a look and said: ‘I’m doing my interview now.’ The subtext was simple: ‘you stay in the corridor while I go into the room.’
I took in the mother- daughter moment, and entered the suite at the Corinthia hotel with Nico. her publicist, Jodi Gottlieb, accompanied her, because she’s a minor. She was my protection. Nico stars in director Tim Burton’s beautifully realised Depression-era remake of the Disney animated classic Dumbo, about a baby elephant with ears so big he can fly. The film, which opens today, is perfect escapism.
Nico was 12 when she was cast as Milly, the savvy daughter of WWI veteran holt Farrier (Colin Farrell). Milly and her brother have been
raised in the circus run by ringmaster
Max Medici (Danny DeVito). The moment Nico was cast, she looked into circus animals and how they can be mistreated. ‘Dumbo is bullied but it’s a happier version of the reality,’ she told me.
Nico lives in North-West London with her parents, 18-year-old sister and five-year-old brother. her father is Ol Parker, a film director whose last venture was the hit Mamma Mia sequel here We Go Again.
She didn’t take acting advice from her parents ‘because that can be a bit intimidating’, although they did give her tips on how to behave on set. ‘Like, be quiet when they’re filming.’
There is no Milly character in the original film. ‘So I didn’t have to live up to anything, apart from being in a massive Disney film.’
Milly’s a bright spark who loves all things scientific. Nico, meanwhile, is into english and creative writing at school; and music. Beyonce, of course. And the cool Jorja Smith. And A$AP rocky, with whom she is ‘obsessed’.
Jordan Peele’s Get Out is a favourite film, and she is keen to see his new one, us, which stars Lupita Nyong’o. She and Nyong’o were both booked on the Stephen Colbert show in the u.S. ‘She had these fantastic contacts in her eyes!’ she told me.
Nico spent six months working on Dumbo and was tutored on set, but she was happy to go back to school, her teachers and her friends. As much as she loved attending the Dumbo galas in LA and London, and seeing her ‘Dumbo family’, she knows that life is ‘not normal’. Nor is having a personal stylist — although she did covet the Schutz silver sparkly ankle boots Jason Bolden picked out for her. She also had her eye on a pair of Comme des Garcons Nike trainers. ‘I don’t think I’ll be allowed to keep them, though,’ she said, laughing.