In 2024, Nicole Kidman received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award from Meryl Streep, whom she called her “guiding light”. Her speech is a tribute to those who helped her, from her parents to the many directors she has worked with.
Paid in books
Kidman grew up in Australia with parents who let her and her sister “just be”. Too young to be paid for the plays she acted in, she was paid in books, and read Chekhov and Ibsen voraciously. She also confesses to skipping school to watch films, forging her parents’ signatures on absence notes: that was her classroom. She started working at 14. When a young Jane Campion asked her to act in a student short, she said no, but Campion still wanted to be her friend. “You don’t turn down Jane Campion ever.”
A nomad’s life
Born in Honolulu but an Australian girl, Kidman describes acting as a nomad’s life. In her early years in America, she slept on friends’ sofas and relied on them for lifts to auditions, because a taxi to an audition she did not get could mean no dinner that night. She thanked the actors and directors she worked with, reading a long list of names, and singled out Stephen Daldry, who stood by her during “the most vulnerable, difficult time” of her life. She also remembered directors who have died, including Stanley Kubrick, Sydney Pollack, Anthony Minghella and Nora Ephron.
New voices
She thanked audiences for supporting her “weird, weird choices”, and introduced her daughters, Sunday and Faith, on their first public evening. Hoping she is only in the middle of her career, she promised to support new writers and directors, quoting Andy Warhol: make art, let others decide whether it is good, and while they are deciding, make some more. “Art can hurt, but it can heal. And love does win. And film is forever.”