Hollywood legends gathered Saturday night to celebrate Nicole Kidman as she received the prestigious AFI Life Achievement Award, the highest honor bestowed by the American Film Institute.
The annual tribute was held at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre, where some of Kidman’s closest friends and colleagues, including Oscar winners Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman, Reese Witherspoon and Oscar nominee Naomi Watts, paid tribute to her illustrious career.
Wearing a form-fitting gold sequin gown, Kidman entered the theater Saturday night to a standing ovation as a recording of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” played overhead.
The program began with a video featuring Freeman in a spoof of Kidman’s recent ad campaign for AMC Theatres to promote the return to moviegoing in the wake of the pandemic. “Somehow she makes heartbreak feel good in a place like this,” Freeman said in the video.
Freeman then came out on stage at the Dolby to extend his congratulations to the Kidman as a fellow AFI Life Achievement recipient, who was honored in 2011. He noted that Kidman’s 2001 musical “Moulin Rouge” is one of his favorite movies. He closed by singing a line from Elton John’s ballad “Your Song”: “How wonderful life is while you’re in the world,” Freeman sang to Kidman.