Meryl Streep jokes that Nicole Kidman is so good at acting it’s ‘traumatizing’

Meryl Streep jokes that Nicole Kidman is so good at acting it’s ‘traumatizing’

Meryl Streep made the most of presenting the AFI Life Achievement Award to Nicole Kidman over the weekend.

The two actors starred together in the 2002 film “The Hours” and Season 2 of “Big Little Lies.” Streep made the audience laugh as she joked about “the hardest part of being called the greatest actress of my generation endlessly.”

“What’s the hardest part?” Streep joked. “Oh! The hardest part is when you’re up against, or you’re acting with, other people who are also really, really, really, really, really, really great. That’s tough.”

Working with Kidman on “Big Little Lies,” Streep said, was a time when she “came within breathing distance of the great gift that Nicole has, and her process and her seismic emotional bank she’s locked in there and her stamina and her drive to be an artist and her discipline .”

He cited Kidman choosing on the first day of filming to do an emotional scene several times, giving a stellar performance in each take.

“I didn’t recover from that first day, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” Streep said. “For me, it was traumatizing because I thought this woman was Valkyrie. How can he keep it? Never despair, never despair.”

Kidman returned the favor when she accepted the award.

“I don’t know what it is but you’re a beacon of excellence and warmth and generosity but you’ve been my guiding light, so to receive this from you, you don’t know,” Kidman said of Streep. “My husband will confirm, my parents will confirm, it’s always you, and no one can touch you.”

The show will premiere on TNT on June 17 and on Turner Classic Movies on June 27, which like CNN is part of Warner Bros. Discovery.