Nicole Kidman’s performances have captivated Hollywood for over three decades. Honouring her transformative role as an outstanding performer across the cinematic landscape, the actress was bestowed with the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award on Sunday. With this, she also became the first Australian actor to be given the highest honour by the organisation. While her award acceptance speech included a lot of praise for all her previous filmmakers, the actress feels she would be a “terrible director” herself.

Kidman explained that she has a lot of ideas but a director has to make a decision, which is not her suit. In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter at the AFI red carpet, Kidman explained that a producer’s duties align much more with her interest.

“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. But 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, 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,” she said.

As a producer, Kidman has helmed projects like Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, The Undoing, Love & Death, and many others.

Nicole Kidman Expresses Gratitude To Her Directors

While accepting her Lifetime Achievement Award, the Moulin Rouge star also hailed the directors in Hollywood and said, “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.”

She also went forward to thank all her previous directors individually including The Portrait of a Lady director Jane Campion, Dead Calm filmmaker Phillip Noyce, To Die For director Gus Van Sant and The Hours director Stephen Daldry.

She also mentioned directors Lars von Trier, Alejandro Amenabar, Jonathan Glazer, Noah Baumbach, Mimi Leder, John Cameron Mitchell, Rob Marshall and Lee Daniels.