(CNN) — Meryl Streep made the most of her AFI Life Achievement Award presentation to Nicole Kidman over the weekend.
The two actresses starred together in the 2002 film “The Hours” and in the second season of “Big Little Lies.” Streep made the audience laugh as she joked about “the very, very difficult part of being incessantly called the greatest actress of my generation.”
“What’s the hardest part?” —Streep joked. “Oh! The hardest part is when you face, or act with, another person who is also very, very, very, very, very, very good. That’s hard.”
Working with Kidman on “Big Little Lies,” Streep said, was the moment when she “was one step away from the formidable gifts that Nicole has, and her process and the emotions that she has locked up in there and her resilience and her drive to be artist and his discipline.”
Nicole Kidman, right, accepts the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award from Meryl Streep on April 27. Credit: Alberto E. Rodríguez/Getty Images.
Streep mentioned that Kidman chose to do an emotional scene several times on the first day of filming, and gave a stellar performance in every take.
“I didn’t recover from that first day, I’d never seen anything like it in my life,” Streep said. “For me it was traumatizing because I thought this woman was a Valkyrie. How is she able to sustain that? She never gives in, she never disappoints.”
Kidman returned the love by accepting the award.
“I don’t know what it is, but you are a beacon of excellence and warmth and generosity, but you were my guiding light, so to receive this from you, you have no idea,” Kidman said of Streep. “My husband is a witness, my parents are witnesses, it was always you and no one can touch you.”
The event will premiere on TNT on June 17 and on Turner Classic Movies on June 27, which, like CNN, are part of Warner Bros. Discovery.
