Nicole Kidman, who ‘makes movies better,’ gets AFI Life Achievement Award

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Morgan Freeman spoke the phrases, however just about everybody who took the stage on the presentation of the AFI Life Achievement Award agreed: “ Nicole Kidman. She makes films higher.”

The road got here in a video parody of Kidman’s AMC Theatres “we make films higher” advert that opened the Saturday evening ceremony on the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. It obtained enormous laughs from the group of multigenerational A-listers there to honor the 40-year profession of the 56-year-old Australian that has included roles in “Moulin Rouge,” “Eyes Large Shut” and an Oscar-winning flip in “The Hours.”

Meryl Streep, Kidman’s “The Hours” co-star who introduced to Streep the Life Achievement Award that she received herself in 2004, obtained laughs practically as huge when, in a mock-boastful voice, described the toughest a part of being “incessantly known as the best actress of my era.”

It’s if you come up in opposition to another person who’s “actually, actually, actually, actually, actually, actually nice” and also you notice they did belongings you couldn’t do, as occurred with Kidman the primary day they labored collectively on the HBO sequence “Large Little Lies,” Streep stated.

Streep and their “Large Little Lies” co-star Reese Witherspoon each did spot-on, Australian-accented impressions of Kidman that had the viewers in stitches.

Streep additionally drew tears from Kidman when describing what she believed motivated her.

“Individuals name it bravery when an actress bares all and leaps off into the unknown and he or she dives deep into the darker components of what it’s to be a human being,” Streep stated. “However I don’t suppose it’s bravery. I feel it’s love. I feel she simply loves it.”

Kidman teared up for the primary time within the night when her husband and fellow Australian, singer Keith City, stated she confirmed him “what love in motion actually appears to be like like” when his substance abuse issues emerged virtually instantly after they wed in 2006.

“4 months into our marriage, I’m in rehab for 3 months,” City stated, Kidman the place she sat on a dais with their two daughters and different household. “Nic pushed via each adverse voice, I’m certain even a few of her personal, and he or she selected love. And right here we’re 18 years later.”

Kidman stated the evening was the primary time she allowed their teenage daughters to affix her on a pink carpet. She additionally has two youngsters along with her first husband, Tom Cruise.

She accepted the AFI award in the identical venue the place she accepted her Oscar in 2003 for enjoying Virginia Woolf in “The Hours.”

She thanked by identify each director she has labored with, together with Stanley Kubrick, Jane Campion, Baz Luhrmann, Sofia Coppola, Yorgos Lanthimos, Sydney Pollack and Lars von Trier.

“It’s a privilege to make movies. And superb to have made movies and tv with these storytellers who allowed me to run wild and be free and play all of those unconventional ladies,” Kidman stated, carrying a floor-length, glittering-gold robe. “Thanks for making me higher at my craft and giving me a spot, nonetheless non permanent, on this world.”

It was introduced again in November of 2022 that Kidman would obtain the award, first handed out in 1973, whose earlier winners embrace Orson Welles, Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Gene Kelly, Sidney Poitier, Barbara Streisand, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, Denzel Washington and Julie Andrews.

The ceremony initially was scheduled for June of 2023, however delayed due to Hollywood’s strikes. It’s going to air on TNT on June 17.

Kidman additionally was nominated for Academy Awards for “Moulin Rouge,” “Rabbit Gap,” “Lion,” and “Being the Ricardos,” whose director, Aaron Sorkin, additionally sang her praises on the ceremony.

Others honoring her included Zac Efron, Miles Teller, Zoe Saldana and Mike Myers, who got here on stage in disguise in one of many eerie orgy masks from “Eyes Large Shut.”

Kidman started her profession as a teen in Australia in movies together with “Bush Christmas” and “BMX Bandits.” Naomi Watts, a buddy from these days, described assembly Kidman when each needed to sit in a ready room in bathing fits for 2 hours at an audition. Aussies Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and Cate Blanchett all gave video tributes to the primary from their nation to win the award.

Kidman stated in a video performed on the ceremony that her look within the 1989 thriller “Useless Calm” introduced her to the eye of, amongst others, Cruise, the one time his identify was spoken Saturday evening.

She had her breakthrough Hollywood function alongside him in 1990’s “Days of Thunder” — they might marry the identical yr — and likewise starred collectively in 1992’s “Far and Away” and in 1999 in Kubrick’s last movie, “Eyes Large Shut.”

She divorced Cruise in 2001, however her stardom solely grew in his wake. A few of her greatest roles, and her Oscar, had been nonetheless to come back.

The function most frequently cited as a favourite throughout the awards present Saturday evening was her musical flip in Luhrmann’s 2001 “Moulin Rouge.”

Freeman, the 2011 AFI honoree, in his in-person presentation that adopted the video spoof, serenaded Kidman with the modified Elton John strains she sings within the movie: “How fantastic life is, now you’re on the planet.”