“This 14-year-old girl could have never predicted all the talented people she would get to work with,” the actress wrote in the caption of a throwback video
Nicole Kidman is marking her 41 years in the movie business!
On Tuesday, April 23, the Academy Award winner shared a throwback video of her first role at 14 on her Instagram. The 56-year-old actress shared the post in celebration of receiving the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award on April 27.
The post included a montage of the teenaged Kidman in her first role as Helen in Bush Christmas in 1983.
“This 14-year-old girl could have never predicted all the talented people she would get to work with and the many different characters she would get to play ????. So excited to celebrate with so many friends and peers on Saturday with the @AmericanFilmInstitute xx,” she wrote in the caption.
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Kidman broke out in the U.S. just six years after her first role, with her portrayal of Rae Ingram in Dead Calm (1989).
Kidman’s post follows the Institute’s 2023 announcement that the Emmy winner will be receiving the Life Achievement Award. The Being the Ricardos actress is the first Australian actor to receive the AFI Life Achievement Award.
“Both a powerhouse performer, spellbinding movie star and accomplished producer, Nicole Kidman has captured the imaginations of audiences throughout her prolific career, delivering complex and versatile performances onscreen,” read the AFI press release.
The Moulin Rouge! actress has worked across genres with a variety of esteemed directors, including Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola, Baz Luhrmann, Sydney Pollack, Aaron Sorkin and Stanley Kubrick.
The five-time Academy Award nominee won her Oscar in 2003, for her role as Virginia Woolf in Stephen Daldry’s The Hours. She was also nominated for her roles in Moulin Rouge! (2002), Rabbit Hole (2011), Lion (2017) and Being the Ricardos (2022). She has also earned a BAFTA Award, two Emmys and six Golden Globes.
More recently, in celebration of PEOPLE’s 50th anniversary, the actress exclusively shared that it’s been “crazy good” to have audiences follow her journey for decades.
“I started working at 14, and I’ve grown up on camera and in front of people, so that’s really exposing, but at the same time, it’s my path,” said Kidman. “I’ve shared my ups and downs with the world and also shared all of my work. That’s been my life…my children, my husband and my work.”
As she reflected on her decades in the business, she noted she would have told her younger self: “Be kind to yourself. I’m my toughest critic. My biggest thing would be ‘Go easy on yourself, Nicky.'”
The AFI Life Achievement Award Tribute will take place on April 27 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. It will air on TNT and Turner Classic Movies (TCM) at a later date.
