Name: Nicole Kidman's Speech | AFI Life Achievement 2024 | TNT
Uploaded: 2024-11-29T17:27:16.000Z
Duration: 18 min 37 s
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Ladies and gentlemen, the recipient of the 2024 AFI Lifetime Achievement, the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement, Nicole Kidman.

They told me I had to put it there, because when Al Pacino got it, it went like that.

Can I just say, Meryl Streep, I've just loved you.

I don't know what it is, but you're a beacon of excellence and warmth and generosity.

So to receive this from you, you have no idea.

My husband will attest, my parents will attest, it's always been you.

And every other gorgeous person that got up here, all of you, and you got up here and you spoke so beautifully.

And now I have to say, you don't really want to hear me speak, do you?

I think you said it when you were on yours where it's like, God, I wish I could know that person, because it's not me.

But I wanted first of all to say thank you to the American Film Institute and the people who put this together tonight.

Unbelievable, because you work tirelessly to keep film alive.

And thank you because it's important and it's necessary and indelible.

So onward, as David would always say to me.

The path to this sort of astonishing room tonight began in Australia with my sister who's here, and we were raised by parents that let us be who we were.

From the minute we were born, we were allowed to just be who we were, which is so important, because we were challenged, we were listened to, and we were allowed to just be.

And for me, that was being allowed to act in local plays and to do theatre.

And my family also allowed me to read books, to read any books I wanted.

And often those books were payment for the plays that I was in, because I was too young to be paid money, so I was paid in books.

And I would choose plays, and I would read them voraciously, and I would read

Chekhov, and I would read Ibsen, and that was the most beautiful payment.

But my family also allowed me to dream and exist in my imagination.

And there were a family that had no idea that I would be what we call in Australia wag school, but basically that was be absent, and I would sneak out and I would go and watch films.

And I would then forge their signatures, please don't do this, Sonny, thief, on the absentee form for school.

And I would literally, that was how I went and saw Clockwork Orange and so many, so many films that I would never have been allowed to see.

I started work at 14, so I didn't have the wayward teenage years.

And it doesn't hurt because I met a woman who was also in her formative years,

She was in, she was doing student films, and she came to the local theater that I was working, that I was performing in, and I think I was doing

And she said, I want you to be in my short film.

And I read it and I went, I don't like it.

So I've learned, be careful who you say no to.

Because I actually then became, she was so good because she still said, but I want to be your friend.

And I've subsequently learned you don't turn down Jane Campion, ever.

I was born, as has been said, in Honolulu, Hawaii, which gave me my American citizenship.

And acting is the perfect career for that.

So you actually go where the work is and you go where you can earn a living and where there is opportunity.

And so you try and you try and you try and you try and get a role and you hope that someone's going to cast you in their film.

And I came to America and even though I'd had some work,

I was relying on the kindness of friends as well as strangers.

And a lot of those friends, though, are in the room.

And I would sometimes sleep on their floors, on their sofas.

I would sometimes have them give me a lift to an audition because when we were growing up, as Nae said, it was really expensive to get a cab.

And if you got a cab to an audition and didn't get it, then that meant you couldn't have dinner that night kind of thing.

And I was like trying to also pay for hotel rooms to stay and then having to go back to Australia and get more money and try to come back.

So I just want to say thank you to all those people that are in the room tonight who did that for me, and there's a lot of you, and I know exactly who you are.

And the other thing that would happen as Australians is we would support each other because when one of you gets a job, it's like, oh, my God, you got a job!

And they would all celebrate you, and it was just pure magic.

And then, of course, what happens is you meet your director, you meet the writer, you meet the producers and all the other people, and then you meet the actors, my tribe.

There's only one person clapping for that?

And you see how they work, and you learn, and you see how other people work, and you share, and you go, oh, my God, who are all these talented people?

And some of them you may never meet again, and some of them you do meet again.

Some of them you have incredible laughter and jokes with and you cry with.

And some of the people whom you get to know become your best friends, or they become your allies, or they become your supporters, or they become your biggest champions, or all of those.

And even though you may not see them again for years, maybe never again, or sometimes you'll see them down the road on another film, that's being a nomad.

That's the nomadic life of what we do as actors.

I've had the good fortune to have worked with some of the greatest actors and some of the greatest directors who have not only raised the bar, but they have also had the ability to raise it so high that we all always learn from them.

And a lot of them are in the room tonight.

They take you in, they teach you, they take you under your wing, and then they blow your mind.

I have so many directors who were so good to me, and I would like to thank them all.

Philip Noyce, you're in the room tonight.

You were amazing because you gave me that role when I had shown absolutely no skill that would make you believe that I could do that.

So Stephen Daldry, you were by my side in the most vulnerable, difficult time of my life.

You held my hand, you got me through it, and you won me an Oscar.

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Nicole Kidman's Speech | AFI Life Achievement 2024 | TNT

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