LOS ANGELES – LOS ANGELES (AP) — Morgan Freeman spoke the words, but nearly everyone who took the stage at the AFI Life Achievement Award presentation agreed: “Nicole Kidman. She makes movies better.
The line came in a video parody of Kidman’s AMC Theaters “we make better movies” announcement that opened Saturday night’s ceremony at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. The crowd of multigenerational celebrities in attendance brought plenty of laughs as they paid homage to the 56-year-old Australian’s 40-year career, which included roles in “Moulin Rouge,” “Eyes Wide Shut” and an Oscar-winning performance in “The Hours.”
Meryl Streep, Kidman’s co-star in “The Hours” who presented Streep with the Life Achievement Award she herself won in 2004, laughed almost as hard when, in a mock, arrogant voice, she described the hardest part of being “incessantly called greatest actress of my generation.”
It’s when you come across someone else who is “really, really, really, really, really, really great” and you realize they’ve done things you couldn’t do, like Kidman did the first day they worked on the show together. from HBO. “Big little lies,” Streep said.
Streep and her “Big Little Lies” co-star Reese Witherspoon did spot-on impressions of Kidman with an Australian accent that left audiences in stitches.
Streep also drew tears from Kidman as she described what she believed motivated her.
“People call it courage when an actress bares it all and leaps into the unknown and delves deep into the darkest parts of what it is to be a human being,” Streep said. “But I don’t think it’s bravery. I think it’s love. I think she just loves it.
Kidman cried for the first time at night when her husband and fellow Australian, singer Keith Urban, said she showed him “what love in action really looks like” when his substance abuse problems surfaced almost immediately after their 2006 wedding.
“Four months into marriage, I’ve been in rehab for three months,” Urban said, looking over at Kidman, where she sat on a dais with her two daughters and other family members. “Nic overcame all the negative voices, I’m sure even some of his own, and chose love. And here we are, 18 years later.”
Kidman said that night was the first time she allowed her teenage daughters to join her on the red carpet. She also has two children with her first husband, Tom Cruise.
She received the AFI award at the same place where she received the Oscar in 2003 for playing Virginia Woolf in “The Hours”.
She thanked by name all the directors she worked with, including Stanley Kubrick, Jane Campion, Baz Luhrmann, Sofia Coppola, Yorgos Lanthimos, Sydney Pollack and Lars von Trier.
“It’s a privilege to make films. And it’s glorious to have done films and television with these storytellers who have allowed me to run wild and be free and play all these unconventional women,” said Kidman, wearing a glittering gold floor-length dress. in my craft and giving me a place, albeit temporary, in this world.”
It was announced in November 2022 that Kidman would receive the award, first presented in 1973, whose previous winners include Orson Welles, Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Gene Kelly, Sidney Poitier, Barbara Streisand, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, Denzel Washington and Julie Andrews.
The ceremony was originally scheduled for June 2023, but was postponed because of the Hollywood strikes. It will air on TNT on June 17.
Kidman was also nominated for an Oscar for “Moulin Rouge”, “Rabbit Hole”, “Lion” and “Being the Ricardos”, whose director, Aaron Sorkin, also praised her at the ceremony.
Others who honored her included Zac Efron, Miles Teller, Zoe Saldana and Mike Myers, who took the stage disguised in one of the mysterious orgy masks from “Eyes Wide Shut.”
Kidman began her career as a teenager in Australia, in films such as “Bush Christmas” and “BMX Bandits”. Naomi Watts, a friend from that time, described meeting Kidman when they both had to sit in a waiting room in bathing suits for two hours. an audition Australians Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and Cate Blanchett paid video tributes to the first from their country to win the award.
Kidman said in a video shown at the ceremony that her appearance in the 1989 thriller “Dead Calm” caught the attention of, among others, Cruise, the only time her name was spoken Saturday night.
She had her breakthrough role in Hollywood alongside him in 1990’s “Days of Thunder” – they would marry the same year – and also starred together in 1992’s “Far and Away” and in 1999, in Kubrick’s last film , “Eyes Wide Shut”.
She divorced Cruise in 2001, but her stardom only grew after him. Some of her biggest roles and her Oscar were still to come.
The role most cited as a favorite during Saturday night’s awards show was his musical appearance in Luhrmann’s 2001 “Moulin Rouge.”
Freeman, the 2011 AFI honoree, in his personal appearance that followed the video parody, serenaded Kidman with the modified Elton John lines she sings in the film: “How wonderful life is, now you’re in the world”.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
