Nicole Kidman received the 49th AFI Lifetime Achievement Award from Meryl Streep on Sunday, April 28, Deadline reported.
Kidman is the first Australian actor to receive the honor. At 56, she's also on the younger side of the 48 previous recipients. Lillian Gish was the oldest recipient at 91, while Tom Hanks was the youngest at 46.
The Academy Award-winning actress ended her 15-minute speech with, “I think it was Andy Warhol who said, ‘Make art and let others decide whether it is good or bad. But while they are deciding, make some more.'”
Morgan Freeman's hilarious tribute to Nicole Kidman
Many A-list stars attended the event to honor Kidman. Morgan Freeman, who received this award in 2011 at age 74, presented a parody of the actress' very meme-worthy AMC Theatres commercials.
“An indescribable feeling…” Freeman began, as he walks up the stairs in a darkened theater.
“She takes us somewhere we've never been before,” he continues, as he looks up into the screen as it plays 2001's The Others.
“… but somehow reborn together,” the Oscar winner said, as the screen now plays Moulin Rouge.
He also says the line that made the commercial famous, “Somehow she makes heartbreak feel good in a place like this,” which elicited the most applause in the almost one-minute video played at the ceremony.
“Because here at AFI, she is Nicole Kidman. She makes movies better,” the actor concluded.
Other stars who honored Kidman are Naomi Watts, who spoke about their early days as they tried to make their way to Hollywood all the way from Australia and Reese Witherspoon, who co-starred and co-executive produced with the actress in HBO's Big Little Lies. Also present were Mike Myers, Zac Efron and Miles Teller, who spoke about their admiration and connection to the ceremony's honoree.
Kidman's husband, country singer Keith Urban, gave an emotional tribute to his wife's talents. He also told the story of how she helped saved his life as he went on an addiction spiral during the early days of their marriage.
AFI Lifetime Achievement Award 101
The AFI Lifetime Achievement Award was established on Feb. 26, 1973 to honor an individual for their lifetime contribution to the American culture through their work in motion pictures and television.
Director John Ford was the first recipient of the award and the board's unanimous choice. Mel Brooks was the oldest male honoree at 86 in 2013. Streep was the youngest female recipient at 54.
Of the 49 recipients, there have been 11 honorees: Bette Davis, who was the first female recipient in 1977, Gish, Barbara Stanwyck, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, Streep, Shirley MacLaine, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Julie Andrews and Kidman makes the 11th.
The composer John Williams was the first honoree who was not an actor or director.
The award has also been a dynasty of sorts. There are three showbiz families to have received the honor: father and son Kirk (1991) and Michael Douglas (2009), father and daughter Henry (1978) and Jane Fonda (2014), and siblings Warren Beatty (2008) and MacLaine (2012).
There were no ceremonies in 2020 and 2021. Andrews received the 48th in 2022 after it was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Kidman's was also delayed due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes last year.
Kidman has been acting since 1983. Her Hollywood breakthrough came with the 1990 film Days of Thunder. Since then, she has been nominated for five Academy Awards. She won her Best Actress Oscar for 2002's The Hours. The actress also won a Primetime Emmy for Best Actress in 2017 for Big Little Lies.
Kidman was most recently see in Prime Video's series Expats, an adaptation of Janice Y. K. Lee's 2016 novel The Expatriates.
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