Award-winning year rolls on for Kidman

Back in 1983, a lanky 15-year-old Nicole Kidman made her inauspicious film debut in an obscure Australian music video called “Bop Girl.” In the ensuing 20-odd years, she’s become one of the more versatile actresses working today.

This past March, Kidman won her first Academy Award for her performance as novelist Virginia Woolf in “The Hours.” And on Friday evening, she became the 18th recipient of the American Cinematheque Award at a star-studded gala at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Oscar-winner Adrien Brody presented the American Cinematheque award to Kidman, whose children attended the event. She spoke eloquently of what acting has meant to her life.

“I have been blessed particularly in these last years,” she said in accepting the award. “It’s the process [of acting] I live for. It’s hard to be me without a role to hide behind.”

During the two-hour ceremony Kidman’s friends from Australia and Hollywood, co-workers, directors and producers such as Stockard Channing, Natalie Portman, Baz Luhrmann, Michael Keaton, Matt Dillon and Stephen Daldry introduced several lengthy clips from her best-known films -- “To Die For,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “The Others,” “Moulin Rouge” and “The Hours” -- as well as the yet-unreleased “Dogville,” “Cold Mountain” and “Birth.”

Veteran actress Lauren Bacall, who appears with the 36-year-old Kidman in “Birth,” stated that Kidman has an “insatiable appetite to explore new works and characters.”

Kidman’s Australian friend of the past 20 years, Naomi Watts (“21 Grams”), told the crowd that Kidman “continues to surprise all of us. “ Cable’s AMC will telecast an edited-down hourlong version of the ceremony Dec. 1.