Nicole Kidman Flies Overnight to Present Denis Villeneuve at LACMA Gala
Nicole Kidman flew 15 hours overnight from Australia to present Denis Villeneuve with his honour at the 2026 LACMA Art+Film Gala in Los Angeles on November 7, according to Variety. The two had never really met before that night, and they have not worked together.
The gala, presented by Gucci, took place at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Yahoo Entertainment described it as the 15th edition of the event. Variety had reported in July that the artist Vija Celmins would also be honoured alongside Villeneuve.
Kidman's night had a cinema thread running through it. She said she had made a commercial for AMC Theatres about six years earlier. She also recalled watching a late screening of Dune at her local cinema, starting at 11 p.m.
Villeneuve talked about how he learned to tell stories on screen. He said his first real contact with the English language came as a boy in Quebec, through films. He would watch the images and imagine what the characters were saying. Years later, he said, a visit to the James Turrell exhibition at LACMA helped him while he was preparing to shoot Arrival in 2016. He said the show taught him how to direct that film.
The calendar also came up. Dune: Part Three is due in cinemas on December 18, a date referenced at the gala. Villeneuve told the room he was having a "great time" screening actors for the upcoming James Bond film, Variety wrote on X.
For anyone who follows how films get made, the evening offered a small window into the people behind the work. A honour like this one is a gathering of collaborators, admirers and friends of the museum, and it gives the crowd a chance to hear the filmmaker in his own words. Nothing about the night changes the release schedule, but it did put a date and a few personal stories in front of the audience.
