Reese Witherspoon proved exactly why she’s an Oscar-winning actor when she delivered a spot-on impersonation of her close friend Nicole Kidman earlier this week.
The Legally Blonde actor was speaking in honour of her Big Little Lies co-star at the 49th AFI Life Achievement Award award on Monday, which was hosted in tribute to the Australian acting legend.
“Most actors wait by a phone to be chosen by a director,” Reese said in her speech. “But as an actor, Nicole has always been proactive. Even in her earliest work, she picks her directors.”
The Walk The Line actor then revealed that Nicole tends to introduce her to obscure foreign films, before switching to her best Kidman-esque Australian accent, earning big laughs from the woman herself in the audience.
“And she’s like, ‘But do you see that director?’” Reese said, impersonating the Moulin Rouge! star. “‘I mean, it’s incredible. Reese, we must get her. We must!’”
But she wasn’t the only Big Little Lies cast member who took the opportunity to lovingly impersonate the woman of the night at the star-studded event, which was actually held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles back in late April, but only aired on TV in the US this week.
Meryl Steep also celebrated her co-star’s “formidable gifts” as an actor, before she went on to recall her own hilarious anecdote with Nicole.
“Reese told me – the very first night we were up in Monterrey, before we started shooting, she said, ‘Do you know what she does?’” the Devil Wears Prada star recalled.
Reese then apparently revealed that Nicole likes to wake up before 5am to go skinny dipping in the sea behind their hotel.
“And I looked at Nicole and I said, ’Are you kidding me?” the three-time Oscar winner continued, before delivering her best Nicole impersonation. “‘Oh, I love it. Oh yeah’,” she said, which prompted laughs from both Nicole and husband Keith Urban.
Fans are now eagerly awaiting the return of Big Little Lies season three, with Nicole recently revealing that she was only convinced to return because of her daughter.
“My daughter is the one who watched both of the series and went, ‘Okay, there’s just no question, there has to be a third,’” she told Elle.