Nicole Kidman Breaks Down in Tears While Dedicating Award to Late Mother in Palm Springs

Nicole Kidman is “still grieving.”

The Babygirl star broke down in tears on the Palm Springs Convention Center stage on Friday night during the Film Awards while dedicating an acting trophy to her late mother, Janelle Ann Kidman, who died last fall.

Kidman, accepting an International Star Award during the starry kick-off to the Palm Springs International Film Festival, said she was fresh from spending the holidays in her native Australia. “I went home over Christmas,” she said. “I’ve lost both my parents, and I’m in that place, like, oh, ah, OK, this is different now. They’ve given me the resilience and they’ve given me the love and they’ve given me the strength to keep moving forward.”

After shouting out her Babygirl director Halina Reijn, calling her “an extraordinary filmmaker” who put her “heart and soul” into the A24 erotic drama, Kidman noted how she wasn’t able to accept a best actress trophy at last September’s Venice Film Festival due to her mother’s passing. “I arrived in Venice and she was gone. I got the call,” Kidman recalled. “I said to Halina, ‘Can you go on stage for me?'”

Reijn did just that, offering Kidman’s words at the time by saying, “I’m in shock, and I have to go to my family, but this award is for her. I am beyond grateful that I get to say her name to all of you. The collision of life and art is heartbreaking, and my heart is broken.”

Back to Friday night, Kidman said the occasion of being on stage allowed her to seize the opportunity to do it herself. “Now I’m on stage, and I’m back here. Thank you for giving me the chance to say this is for my mom. My whole career has been for my mom and my dad and they’re not here anymore. I want to keep working and giving to the world. I’m sorry I’m crying,” Kidman said as her eyes welled up with tears. “I didn’t want to do that but I feel my mama right now. This is for your mama.”

The emotional moment came after a powerful tribute from Jamie Lee Curtis. The Oscar winner turned up in Palm Springs to celebrate her friend and “TV sister” from the Amazon series Scarpetta, which they are currently filming. Curtis managed to thread an emotional and expert speech by centering it on love, inspired by a line she read in Alistair MacLeod’s novel No Great Mischief. The line? “All of us are better when we’re loved.”

“Nicole Kidman was loved. It’s very clear mostly by her beautiful mother Janelle who she sadly lost earlier this year,” Curtis said, adding that everyone including her husband, Keith Urban, children, pets, countless colleagues and fans “who appreciate her great work” all love her. But Curtis said she really got to know Kidman by spending time at her “lovely and modest home” during an afternoon spent with Curtis’s husband, filmmaker Christopher Guest, and Urban. They watched a football game, laughed, cried, talked about children, their hopes and dreams, the art of storytelling and cinema and more.

“I saw in that moment why she is the greatest star we have,” praised Curtis. “The center of Nicole Kidman is love. … Love is her secret sauce. It’s the center of it all.” Curtis continued by complimenting how Kidman works so tirelessly in a way to create jobs for artists, actors and crew, something she’s doing on their series Scarpetta.

“When you granulate all of Nicole’s work and life, it simply comes back to love. Love of family, love of art, love of community, of self,” Curtis added. “There’s nothing else to say here.”

The Film Awards gala is the annual and always star-studded kick-off to the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Held at the Palm Springs Convention Center, the event saw trophies presented to The Brutalist star Adrien Brody (Desert Palm Achievement Award, Actor), A Complete Unknown’s Timothee Chalamet (Chairman’s Award), A Real Pain’s Kieran Culkin (Breakthrough Performance Award, Actor), Sing Sing’s Colman Domingo (Spotlight Award, Actor), Wicked’s Ariana Grande (Rising Star Award), Maria’s Angelina Jolie (Desert Palm Achievement Award, Actress), Babygirl’s Kidman (International Star Award), Anora’s Mikey Madison (Breakthrough Performance Award, Actress), Dune auteur Denis Villeneuve (Visionary Award), the Conclave cast (Ensemble Performance Award), and the team from Emilia Perez (Vanguard Award) including Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana, Edgar Ramirez, Karla Sofia Gascon and auteur Jacques Audiard.