Hollywood A-listers honour Nicole Kidman with lifetime achievement award

The line came in a video parody of a cinema ad by Kidman with the tagline “we make movies better”. The Hollywood A-listers at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood laughed heartily as they honoured the 40-year career of the 56-year-old Australian that has included roles in Moulin Rouge, Eyes Wide Shut and an Oscar-winning turn in The Hours.

Meryl Streep, Kidman’s The Hours co-star – who presented to Streep the Life Achievement Award that she won herself in 2004 – got more big laughs when, in a mock-boastful voice, described the hardest part of being “incessantly called the greatest actress of my generation”.

It’s when you come up against someone else who is “really, really, really, really, really, really great” and you realise they did things you couldn’t do, as happened with Kidman the first day they worked together on the HBO series Big Little Lies, Streep said. Streep and their Big Little Lies co-star Reese Witherspoon both did spot-on, Australian-accented impressions of Kidman that had the audience in stitches.

Streep also drew tears from Kidman when describing what she believed motivated her.

“People call it bravery when an actress bares all and leaps off into the unknown and she dives deep into the darker parts of what it is to be a human being,” Streep said. “But I don’t think it’s bravery. I think it’s love. I think she just loves it.”

Kidman teared up for the first time in the evening when her husband and fellow Australian, singer Keith Urban, said she showed him “what love in action really looks like” when his substance abuse problems emerged almost immediately after they wed in 2006.

“Four months into our marriage, I’m in rehab for three months,” Urban said, looking at Kidman where she sat on a dais with their two daughters and other family. “Nic pushed through every negative voice, I’m sure even some of her own, and she chose love. And here we are 18 years later.”

Kidman said the night was the first time she allowed their teenage daughters to join her on a red carpet. She also has two children with Tom Cruise.

She thanked by name every director she has worked with, including Stanley Kubrick, Jane Campion, Baz Luhrmann, Sofia Coppola, Yorgos Lanthimos, Sydney Pollack and Lars von Trier.

“It is a privilege to make films. And glorious to have made films and television with these storytellers who allowed me to run wild and be free and play all of these unconventional women,” Kidman said.