I’m A Celebrity 2018: Kerry Armstrong tells of awkward AFI moment with Nicole Kidman

AN AUSSIE actress has told of the awkward fallout after she beat Oscar-winning star Nicole Kidman to Australia’s top film award.

ACTOR Kerry Armstrong has detailed the moment Nicole Kidman “left the room” when she beat the Oscar-winning actor to take home Australia’s top film award.

Armstrong won best actress at the then 2001 AFI Awards, now the AACTA’s, for her lead role in critically acclaimed film, Lantana, over Kidman’s turn in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge.

Oscar winner Russell Crowe, who is good friends with Kidman, presented the award.

Kerry Armstrong says Russell Crowe was “visibly unimpressed” when she won best actress.

“When we went up against each other for the AFI Awards, it was Moulin Rouge verses Lantana, we were so waiting for Moulin Rouge to win everything,” Armstrong explained on reality show I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!

“Russell Crowe said, ‘I’m here to announce best actress, it is four really wonderful ladies. I’ve got a bit of bias going on so I came all the way to announce best actress’.”

Earlier that night, Armstrong, 59, won best actress in television for SeaChange.

Kerry Armstrong on the night she won best actress at the AFI awards in 2001.

“Nicole was up there getting ready and he said best actress and he said my name,” Armstrong recalled. There was a lot of commotion on that side of the room and Vince (Colosimo) came up or Anthony LaPaglia came up and said she’d (Kidman) left the room, which was like a … I went up on stage and Russell Crowe was visibly unimpressed.”

Nicole Kidman had been nominated for Moulin Rouge but lost out.

Lantana took home a string of awards that year, including best director for Ray Lawrence, best film, best actor for LaPaglia, best supporting actor for Colosimo and best supporting actress for Rachel Blake.

A few months later, Kidman won a Golden Globe for Moulin Rouge, while the movie was named best musical or comedy feature film.

Armstrong joked that the pair have been engaged in a feud since, adding she’d love to land a part in Kidman’s recent award-winning performance in the Big Little Lies television series.

“She keeps taking all these roles. I’m like, ‘Nicole, have a rest buddy’.”

* The journalist is in South Africa as a guest of Channel Ten.

Originally published as I’m A Celebrity 2018: Kerry Armstrong tells of awkward AFI moment with Nicole Kidman