LOS ANGELES — Nicole Kidman's close co-stars, including Meryl Streep and Reese Witherspoon, paid her emotional tribute, as expected, when she received the AFI Life Achievement Award in April. But when a taped telecast of the event airs on TNT on Monday night, viewers may be surprised to see younger actors thanking the Aussie Oscar winner for the boost she gave their fledgling careers. Miles Teller, who recently starred in "Top Gun: Maverick" with Kidman's ex-husband, Tom Cruise, told the audience at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood that he got his first film role, along with encouragement and strategic cold shoulders, from Kidman in 2010's "Rabbit Hole.
" "I later found out that the reason she said I was right for the part was because I was able to blush on camera," Teller, now 37, said. "But that was not acting, Nicole. That was hives.
" She would also get the third of her five Academy Award nominations for the role in director John Cameron Mitchell's film about grief and loss. Teller was just a 23-year-old senior at New York University. "She was this, like, mystic creature.
And I was just so taken by her grace and her beauty and her talent," Teller said. "After the first day of filming, Nicole comes up to me and she gives me a hug, and she says, 'Oh, Miles, that was such a great first day.' I can still remember that moment.
I was on top of the world." It wouldn't last. "The next time I show up on set, I see Nicole and she's kind of across the room, and I wave to her and I say.