“I believe it was Andy Warhol who stated, “Make artwork and let others determine whether or not it’s good or unhealthy. However whereas they’re deciding, make some extra”.
That was the road with which Nicole Kidman ended her 15-minute acceptance speech after Meryl Streep had introduced her with the forty ninth AFI Life Achievement Award.
That’s one thing that appears completely acceptable for Kidman, who doesn’t appear to cease “making artwork,” taking dangers at each flip, telling tales by way of her energy not simply as an actor, but in addition a producer devoted to bringing these tales to screens large and small. At 56, she is on the youthful aspect of the earlier 48 recipients of this very excessive honor, the primary Australian to obtain it. And somebody very a lot in the course of creating these life achievements that led to final evening’s honor on the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, the place a big turnout out the trade’s elite got here by to have a good time her.
Deadline reported final evening on the pink carpet and included a gallery of many attending. The checklist included on-stage members like Morgan Freeman, who provided the inevitable parody on Kidman’s AMC Theatres spot; Naomi Watts, who instructed of the early days as every made their method into the enterprise from their dwelling in Australia; Reese Witherspoon, who talked not solely about Kidman’s performing prowess, but in addition her dead-on producing talents; Mike Myers, Zac Efron, Miles Teller, every telling of their connections and admiration to the evening’s honoree.
Her husband Keith City maybe gave the evening’s most emotional tribute, not simply to her abilities the world may see, however to their personal lives as properly, together with a heart- wrenching story of how his spouse, shortly after their marriage, helped to tug him out of a downward spiral of dependancy.
The Dolby ballroom, the identical space the place the Oscars happen, solely with seats eliminated and jam-packed with dinner tables, was additionally decked out with some beautiful portraits of Kidman adorning the partitions and demonstrating not simply her unbelievable vary as an actress, but in addition successfully exhibiting her as a worthy successor to another actors who’ve shared this identical honor because it was created almost a half-century in the past (92 yr outdated AFI founder George Stevens Jr. was amongst those that have been within the viewers).
Bette Davis. Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Lillian Gish, Barbara Stanwyck, Jack Lemmon, Kirk Douglas, Sidney Poitier, Elizabeth Taylor, Jack Nicholson, Barbara Streisand, Streep, Freeman, Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro, Shirley MacLaine, Jane Fonda, Denzel Washington and on an on. Julie Andrews acquired the forty eighth after a ceremony that was delayed by over a yr by the pandemic. Kidman’s large evening additionally was delayed a number of months by the writers and actors strikes final yr.
At this level, I might name myself a veteran of those evenings, and I at all times look ahead to them. The primary one I really acquired to attend was within the ’80s, after I was working with Leisure Tonight. It was for Stanwyck, who shortly earlier than the night had thrown out her again, however was decided to attend, although she couldn’t sit within the ballroom for many of it.
She did make it on to that stage to gather her award, and it’s a vivid reminiscence. As a result of I used to be on my own one of many organizers requested if I may fill in and sit at a desk, a main one, the place there was a no-show. I discovered myself sitting subsequent to the Oscar-winning director Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton), an enormous supporter of AFI. He died a few years after that, and his widow, Jean, in 1991 would set up the Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Medal, given to an alum of the AFI Conservatory or AFI DWW+. The primary winner was David Lynch. By coincidence, this yr I occurred to be sitting proper behind the 2024 recipient, cinematographer Matthew Libatique, who made a heartfelt speech accepting his medal early within the night.
Since that Stanwyck AFI night, I’ve managed to attend almost all that got here after, not fairly, however shut. There may be at all times one thing particular about them, however this one to Kidman appeared very warm, an actual household affair that included her two daughters with City, and in accordance with their mother, have been making their pink carpet debuts no much less.
I briefly caught up with Kidman simply earlier than her tribute started. She was nonetheless reeling from the doorway AFI at all times holds for his or her honoree. Kidman, in a surprising Balenciaga gold robe, merely seems on stage after her title is introduced after which walks by way of all of the tables to the dais. A girl subsequent to me had her mouth open, saying, “She appears like a residing Oscar.” This was Hollywood glamour at its greatest, however Kidman lets the work converse for itself, just lately telling the Los Angeles Occasions she doesn’t look again, even shredding every of her scripts as soon as the work is completed, packing her suitcase, and shifting on to the subsequent journey in filmmaking.
Within the 40 years since her debut, the checklist tells you every part. Useless Calm, To Die For, The Portrait Of A Woman, Eyes Broad Shut, Moulin Rouge!, The Others, The Hours, Dogville, The Human Stain, Chilly Mountain, Delivery, Australia, Rabbit Gap, The Household Fang, Lion, Destroyer, Boy Erased, Bombshell, Being The Ricardos, Massive Little Lies, The Undoing, 9 Good Strangers, Expats, and people movie and tv achievements are only a few.
Kidman made some extent of tributing what appeared like each director she has labored with: Kubrick, Luhrman, Daldry, Campion, Van Sant, Von Trier, Glazer, Schumacher, Scott, Howard, Noyce, Miller, Daniels, Lanthimos, Kaufman, Bier, director Park Chan-Wook, Sofia Coppola, Ephron, Marshall, Sorkin, all the way in which to Lulu Wang, who most just lately directed her within the riveting restricted collection, Expats.
As AFI President & CEO Bob Gazzale, who additionally serves as Govt Producer of the AFI Life Achievement Gala Tribute appears ahead to subsequent yr’s fiftieth, I don’t suppose they may have probably picked a extra deserving recipient for his or her forty ninth.