(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Madonna has advised people to "look beneath the surface" when getting to know friends.

The singer is currently promoting her movie W.E., which is about the abdication crisis in the UK. Britain's King Edward VIII gave up the throne to marry US divorce Wallis Simpson, and throughout the movie it is made clear that no-one should obsess about getting everything right.

"Because there's no such thing as perfection, we have to look beneath the surface. How do you get to know a person?" Madonna mused. "You can't expect to know who they are by reading about them in a magazine."

The music star admits it took a lot for her to move into helming movies. She is divorced from director Guy Ritchie and worried she wouldn't be taken seriously.

"I was completely intimidated to become a director because I was married to one and I thought, Oh, who am I?' But eventually, I found the courage to do it," she told British magazine Look. (C) Cover Media