If Nicole Kidman is ever looking to cast her own biopic, she won’t have to look far.
Reese Witherspoon delivered a spot-on impersonation of her close friend and Big Little Lies co-star at the recent 49th AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Nicole Kidman, airing Monday on TNT.
“Most actors wait by a phone to be chosen by a director,” said Witherspoon in her speech. “But as an actor, Nicole has always been proactive. Even in her earliest work, she picks her directors.”
She then recounted a common experience of watching a foreign film with Kidman, switching from her southern U.S. accent to a hilariously accurate Australian impression.
“And she’s like, ‘But do you see that director?’” said Witherspoon, earning laughs from everyone, including Kidman. “‘I mean, it’s incredible. Reese, we must get her. We must!’”
Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon attend the 49th AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute To Nicole Kidman on April 27, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California. (Jon Kopaloff / Getty Images for AFI)
The AFI tribute was held on April 27 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, honoring Kidman for her contribution to American culture through film and television.
Previously postponed from 2023 amid the WGA strike, Kidman’s tribute marks the first time an Australian actress has received the honor and the third non-American actress honoree after Elizabeth Taylor and Julie Andrews.
First awarded in 1973, other past AFI Life Achievement Award honorees include Orson Welles, Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Gene Kelly, Sidney Poitier, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington and more.
Kidman and Witherspoon became friends after first starring together in HBO’s series adaptation of the Liane Moriarty novel Big Little Lies in 2017, also serving as executive producers.
Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley and Reese Witherspoon star in ‘Big Little Lies’. (HBO)
HBO
Last week, Kidman told Vanity Fair during a conversation with Witherspoon that they’re “moving fast and furious” with a long-awaited season 3, as Moriarty is currently “delivering the book.”
The pair also discussed their ongoing friendship and working relationship. “Our paths consistently cross, and that’s one of the things I love about us,” said Kidman.
“We started working together and we went, ‘Okay, from this point on, it’s a lifetime,’ she continued. “We’ll be playing bridge and I’ll be older than you, but we’ll be sitting there. I’ll be like, ‘Can you get me the cover?’”
Witherspoon added that they “always joke that we’re going to be old ladies on a porch singing” Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’, even though they both admitted they “still don’t know all the words.”
The 49th AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Nicole Kidman airs Monday, June 17 at 10pm ET/PT on TNT.