Kim Novak’s emotional return to the spotlight at Venice Film Festival

Kim Novak, recipient of the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement, poses for photographers during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Monday, Sept. 1, 2025. (Photo by Alessandra Tarantino/Invision/AP)

VENICE, Italy — Kim Novak was worried she’d made a mistake. The 92-year-old star of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” had made the long trek from Oregon to Venice, Italy, for the film festival. There she’d be receiving a lifetime achievement award and supporting the world premiere of a documentary about her life and career, “Kim Novak’s Vertigo.”

But on that first day, she wasn’t feeling strong or up to the task.

“I thought I could handle it, then I thought, no I can’t, I’m not physically strong enough,” Novak told The Associated Press this week. “Then I heard my mother’s voice from heaven and she said ‘just have fun and enjoy it.’”

Novak listened to that voice and was glad she did. Being bipolar, she said, she’s used to going through a lot of emotions. But the experience in Venice has been a dream.

“It’s one of the very first events that I’ve really had fun, really fun,” she said.

Earlier in the week, she was presented with a Golden Lion lifetime achievement award. Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who presented the honor, listed off many of her most famous credits, including “Vertigo,” Otto Preminger’s “The Man with the Golden Arm,” Joshua Logan’s “Picnic,” “Pal Joey” and “Bell, Book and Candle.” Novak was the top box-office star in the world from 1958 through 1960 and became the first woman to start her own production company before leaving Hollywood behind in 1966 to live a private life devoted to painting.

“Most impressive is the fact that she was capable of projecting frailty, power, mystery. To appear, endearing, dynamic, mythical and phenomenal,” del Toro said. “And with all those wonderful arresting performances, she always carried a little bit of warmth, a little bit of heartbreak and a little bit of mystery.”

Novak reflects on her extraordinary life in Alexandre O. Philippe’s documentary, which premiered out of competition in Venice. She said it was fate that Philippe came into her life and wanted to make the film.

“I was at the point where I wanted to talk about my life, because I’m at the end of my life,” Novak said. “It was meant to be. And I can’t think of anyone it was better to do it with.”

“I didn’t even know my phone had voice memos,” she laughed. “It’s not always easy for me to open up and discuss the intimate things, but it was wonderful because it was like I was talking to myself. Once you open the door, it all comes flooding out.”

Coming to the festival was brave of Novak, Philippe said. Just over a decade ago, Novak stepped back in the public eye to present at the 2014 Oscars, which led many online, including Donald Trump, to insult her appearance.

“The easy thing would have been to stay in Oregon and keep painting,” he said. “At this point in her life the hard thing is to come back into the spotlight and show herself again. But she did the hard thing. And she came on stage, not as an icon, not as a movie star, but she came on stage and said ‘I am you and you are me.’”

It’s Novak not as a golden age icon, but as a person that Philippe hopes audiences see and connect with in the film, which does not currently have a release date. For Novak, it’s been an illuminating experience, revisiting her extraordinary life.

“It’s time at the end of your life to put the puzzle pieces together and make them fit,” Novak said. “It’s an incredible experience to see them all falling in place and somehow coming to this festival is like putting some of the other pieces that you couldn’t put together that now come together and make a whole beautiful, beautiful, picture.”

Even the “Vertigo” suit she once hated so much as taken on a different light. In the film, she gets to see the costume for the first time since making the film. The fabric that she remembered having been so rough and hard had softened with time, which seemed like an apt metaphor.

“The opportunity to see it when you have all this life behind you, it makes you think that what you thought was right when you were young is not necessarily so. It could be wrong, and vice versa,” she said. “But all this you gain over time. And so becoming old is a beautiful thing, you know? And this festival, being able to experience it through Hollywood eyes, it’s just incredible. I loved it, I love it. I’m experiencing great joy.”

The Venice tribute, she added, was like “icing on the cake,” she said. “I like cake, but icing is the best.”

“What is sweeter in the world than appreciation,” she said. “I feel appreciated and you can’t know how much that means.”

She’s also looking forward to getting home and painting again. Every night at the festival she’s found herself sketching and dreaming up ideas for more works.

“My legacy is my art,” she said. “You have my old movies, but you also have my new perspective on life. I do it all in my work and I want that to be my legacy. I want to get in a whole lot more paintings before I pass. So I can’t wait to get back.”

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Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press