Nicole Kidman will be the recipient of the 49th American Film Institute (AFI) Life Achievement Award, celebrating her career achievements thus far. The award will be presented to Kidman at a Gala Tribute at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 10, 2023. She is the first Australian actor to receive this honor.
“Nicole Kidman has enchanted audiences for decades with the daring of her artistry and the glamour of a screen icon,” said Kathleen Kennedy, chair of the AFI Board of Trustees. “She is a force both brave in her choices and bold in each performance. AFI is honored to present her with the 49th AFI Life Achievement Award.”
Both a powerhouse performer, movie star and accomplished producer, Kidman has captured the imaginations of audiences around the world throughout her prolific career, delivering complex and versatile performances onscreen. Seamlessly moving between independent and studio films, Kidman has earned a reputation for her extraordinary talent, commitment to her craft and desire to work with auteur filmmakers including Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola, Baz Luhrmann, Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Lars von Trier and Stanley Kubrick.
A five-time Academy Award® nominee, Kidman took a wonderfully restrained and transformational turn as Virginia Woolf in The Hours, which earned her the Oscar® for Best Actress in 2003. Following her stunning breakthrough performance in 1989’s Dead Calm, Kidman has captivated global audiences, from her daring performance as Alice Harford in Eyes Wide Shut and enchanting Satine in Moulin Rouge!, to her raw turn as Grace Margaret Mulligan in Dogville and her enthralling portrayal of Lucille Ball in Being The Ricardos. Throughout her distinguished career, Kidman has won a BAFTA Award, two Emmys® and six Golden Globes–and is widely regarded as one of the finest actresses of her generation. She co-founded her production company Blossom Films in 2010.
Across film and television, she has delivered remarkably nuanced performances characterized by their unflinching courage, vulnerability and tenacity, with additional acting credits including: Days of Thunder (1990), Far and Away (1992), Batman Forever (1995), To Die For (1995), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), Practical Magic (1998), The Others (2001), The Human Stain (2003), Cold Mountain (2003), Birth (2004), The Interpreter (2005), Australia (2008), Nine (2009), Rabbit Hole (2010), The Paperboy (2012), Stoker (2013), Paddington (2014), Queen of the Desert (2015), Lion (2016), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), The Beguiled (2017), The Upside (2017), Boy Erased (2018), Destroyer (2018), Aquaman (2018), Bombshell (2019) and The Northman (2022). She has also starred in and produced multiple critically acclaimed television programs, including Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012), Big Little Lies (2017-2019), Top of the Lake (2017), The Undoing (2020), and Nine Perfect Strangers (2021).
In theater, Kidman made a highly lauded London stage debut in the fall of 1998, starring with Iain Glen in “The Blue Room,” David Hare’s modern adaptation of Schnitzler’s “La Ronde.” For her performance, Kidman won London’s Evening Standard Award and was nominated in the Best Actress category for a Laurence Olivier Award. In 2015, Kidman was seen on the West End stage in Anna Ziegler’s “Photograph 51,” for which she received a London’s Evening Standard Award.
In January of 2006, Kidman was awarded Australia’s highest honor, the Companion of the Order of Australia. She was also awarded the Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear award for her performance in The Hours. In 2017, the Cannes Film Festival honored Kidman with the 70th Anniversary Prize for her body of work and longstanding history with the festival. She is one of only eight people to ever receive this honor.
Kidman has served as Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women for nearly two decades. Along with her husband, Keith Urban, she has helped raise millions over the years for the Stanford Women’s Cancer Program which is a world-renowned center for research into the causes, treatment, prevention, and eventual cure of women’s cancer.
Kidman’s many upcoming projects include Lulu Wang’s Expats for Amazon, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom for Warner Brothers, Lioness for Paramount+, and Holland, Michigan for Amazon.
AFI Life Achievement Award Recipients
The 49th AFI Life Achievement Award Honoree joins an esteemed group of individuals who have been chosen for this distinguished honor since its inception.
- 1973 John Ford
- 1974 James Cagney
- 1975 Orson Welles
- 1976 William Wyler
- 1977 Bette Davis
- 1978 Henry Fonda
- 1979 Alfred Hitchcock
- 1980 James Stewart
- 1981 Fred Astaire
- 1982 Frank Capra
- 1983 John Huston
- 1984 Lillian Gish
- 1985 Gene Kelly
- 1986 Billy Wilder
- 1987 Barbara Stanwyck
- 1988 Jack Lemmon
- 1989 Gregory Peck
- 1990 David Lean
- 1991 Kirk Douglas
- 1992 Sidney Poitier
- 1993 Elizabeth Taylor
- 1994 Jack Nicholson
- 1995 Steven Spielberg
- 1996 Clint Eastwood
- 1997 Martin Scorsese
- 1998 Robert Wise
- 1999 Dustin Hoffman
- 2000 Harrison Ford
- 2001 Barbra Streisand
- 2002 Tom Hanks
- 2003 Robert De Niro
- 2004 Meryl Streep
- 2005 George Lucas
- 2006 Sean Connery
- 2007 Al Pacino
- 2008 Warren Beatty
- 2009 Michael Douglas
- 2010 Mike Nichols
- 2011 Morgan Freeman
- 2012 Shirley MacLaine
- 2013 Mel Brooks
- 2014 Jane Fonda
- 2015 Steve Martin
- 2016 John Williams
- 2017 Diane Keaton
- 2018 George Clooney
- 2019 Denzel Washington
- 2022 Julie Andrews
First-Time Feature Directors Make Major Splash At AFI Fest, Generate Oscar Buzz
Two first-time feature directors who are generating Oscar buzz this awards season were front and center this past weekend at AFI Fest in Hollywood. Rachel Morrison, who made history as the first woman nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar---on the strength of Mudbound in 2018--brought her feature directorial debut, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios), to the festival on Sunday (10/27), and shared insights into the film during a conversation session immediately following the screening. This came a day after William Goldenberg, an Oscar-winning editor for Argo in 2013, had his initial foray into feature directing, Unstoppable (Amazon MGM Studios), showcased at the AFI proceedings. He too spoke after the screening during a panel discussion. The Fire Inside--which made its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival--tells the story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (portrayed by Ryan Destiny), a Black boxer from Flint, Mich., who trained to become the first woman in U.S. history to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the sport. She achieved this feat--with the help of coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry)--only to find that her victory at the Summer Games came with relatively little fanfare and no endorsement deals. So much for the hope that the historic accomplishment would be a ticket out of socioeconomic purgatory for Shields and her family. It seemed like yet another setback in a cycle of adversity throughout Shields’ life but she persevered, going on to win her second Gold Medal at the next Olympics and becoming a champion for gender equality and equitable pay for women in sports. Shields has served as a source of inspiration for woman athletes worldwide--as well as to the community of... Read More