Nicole Kidman expressed her gratitude to the directors she has worked with over the years in her remarks after receiving the AFI Life Achievement Award.
She made it clear that she does not have any ambition to work behind the camera.
“I feel like I would be a terrible director because I always have so many ideas. A director has to make choices, and that’s not my strong suit,” Kidman told The Hollywood Reporter on Saturday night on the AFI red carpet, noting that a producer’s duties are much more aligned with her interests.
“I’m very good at being passionate and supporting the voices and reading a script and going ‘I love this script,’ or seeing somebody and going, ‘I love this actor, I love this director, how do I support them?’ And they maybe have done nothing [before], but I want to get behind them. That’s what I love doing; it excites me, and it really makes me happy. I love shining the light on other people or helping to do that.”
Kidman has produced films such as Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, The Undoing, Love & Death, Special Ops: Lioness, and Expats under her Blossom Films.
The celebrity expanded on her wish to illuminate others during the homage, telling the Hollywood audience inside the Dolby Theatre:
“There’s so many more exciting young directors and voices that are completely original and need to be heard, and they have a lot to say. We need to give them a chance to say it and to hear them, and I am here, I am ready to roll up my sleeves. I am here always to support those voices.”
During her award speech, Kidman also mentioned the names of all of her prior directors and thanked each one of them separately.
At the ceremony, Kidman received a life achievement award at the age of 56, and celebrities such as Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon, Morgan Freeman, Naomi Watts, Zoe Saldaña, Aaron Sorkin, Zac Efron, Miles Teller, Joey King, Mike Myers, and her husband Keith Urban were present to honour her.
“When they told me that Meryl got it at around the same time I was like, ‘OK, that’s OK, that’s cool,'” Kidman told the outlet.
“But at the same time you just go, I’ll take whatever you give me because, in terms of the work, I just love doing the work.”