THANDIE NEWTON - NEWTON'S REGRETS OVER EARLY ROMANCE

NEWTON'S REGRETS OVER EARLY ROMANCE

THANDIE NEWTON has mixed feelings about starting her acting career so young, insisting she should have been protected from the troubled relationship she began with director JOHN DUIGAN when she was a teen.
The actress was just 16 years old when she flew to Australia to film her debut movie, 1991's Flirting, and began a turbulent six-year romance with the director, who was then 39.
After recently working with schoolgirls at Oprah Winfrey's Leadership Academy in South Africa, Newton was reminded of how young she was when she started her love affair with Duigan.
And the Crash star still wonders how the filmmaker could have dated someone so "vulnerable".
She says, "I was 16. I didn't tell my parents about it (the relationship) but really young people who are vulnerable have to be looked out for. I've just been out to South Africa to Oprah's Leadership Academy. It educates girls from impoverished backgrounds and I was taking part in an arts week.
"I looked at the 16-year-old girls there. How can it possibly be right to start a serious relationship with someone that age when you are so much older? I've been through a lot of therapy so I sort of know why people do things now."