Nicole Kidman has announced the death of her mother, Janelle, as the Oscar-winner was named best actress at the 2024 Venice film festival on Saturday.
The Australian actor was not in the Italian city to accept the award for her new film Babygirl, after arriving in Venice to hear that her “beautiful, brave mother” Janelle had died.
“I’m in shock, and I have to go to my family. But this award is for her. She shaped me, she guided me, and she made me,” Kidman said in a statement read out by Babygirl’s Dutch director Halina Reijn.
“The collision of life and art is heartbreaking,” Kidman wrote. “And my heart is broken.”
Janelle Kidman was 84. Nicole’s father, Antony Kidman, died in 2014 at the age of 75.
In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald in 2020, Kidman described her mother as “my mentor, my guide and my nurturer”.
“She’s given me the fire to pursue the career I have because I’ve always wanted to please her.
“But she also carved her own path and wanted her daughters to have the same opportunity to carve their own paths.
“Mum didn’t necessarily get the career that she wanted, but she was determined that her daughters would have opportunities that were equal.
“That’s given me my life. And she gave me my life, she and my dad.”
Reijn accepted the best actress award on Kidman’s behalf.
Babygirl, an erotic thriller, premiered in Venice last week. Kidman plays the role of Romy, a married, high-powered New York CEO who embarks on a torrid, sado-masochistic affair with a new company intern.
– Agence France-Presse contributed to this report