A reminder of just how incredible Nicole Kidman's career has been.

Nicole Kidman’s chance for an award at the 2017 Golden Globes has come and gone. The Australian actress, 49, lost out to Viola Davis, who won Best Supporting Actress for the feature film Fences. 

I wonder what’s going through Kidman’s head right now?

Likely she’s relieved that after a morning of preparations – and having her pulled and her makeup done and too much hairspray and more makeup applied – she is finally free from people poking and prodding her. She’s run the paparazzi gauntlet. She’s answered questions about the sleeves on her Alex McQueen dress. Now, it’s time to enjoy.

She might be in awe, sitting in the auditorium at the 74th Golden Globe Awards. Maybe it never gets old, surrounded by some of the world’s most famous faces – on the stage in front of her, in the seats next to her. She being one of them, of course. Maybe she’s taking it all in: the voices of huge personalities, lots of booze, filling the void above her.

Her heart might have skipped a beat when she didn’t receive an award tonight. But I hope not.

More than anything, she should be proud.

This year marked her 11th Golden Globe nomination. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in the Australian-produced drama Lion.

Read that again: 11-times nominated at the Golden Globes, and three of those times she's been named the winner - she was awarded Best Actress in Motion Picture for The Hours in 2003; Best Actress in a Musical for Moulin Rogue in 2002; and Best Actress in a Musical for To Die For in 1996.

To put this in perspective, Mel Gibson — the other "Aussie Oscar", as the pair are known — has received four nominations, including this year for Best Director of a Motion Picture for Hacksaw Ridge.

The other Australian at this year's Golden Globes is actor Joel Edgerton. It's hist first-ever nomination, and he's up for best actor in Drama Motion Picture Loving. 

Nicole Kidman has been on our screens for 33 years. Her film debut was in 1983, for the Australian classic Bush Christmas. She was 16.

We've seen her in Dead Calm (1989) - the thriller that first made Kidman's name recognisable around the world. Variety in the US said she gave her character, Rea, in Dead Calm "real tenacity and energy".

In 1990, she did her first American film. She played a young doctor who falls in love with a race car driver in Days of Thunder. It was the highest grossing movie of that year.

Her performance as Suzanne Stone in To Die For in 1995, was ranked 40th out of the 100 Greatest Movie Performances of All Time by Premier Magazine.

The best looks from the 2017 Golden Globe Awards. Post continues below.

She was the first Australian actress to win an Best Actress Academy Award (or an "Oscar") in 2003, for her role in The Hours. She also received Oscar nominations for Moulin Rouge in 2002 and Rabbit Hole in 2011.

The list of films she's starred in is too long to present here. It's proof of her versatility and talent. It's also a tribute to her passion for acting. She always knew she wanted to be an actress.

Kidman has made her name in acting, but she is much, much more than an actress.

She has been an advocate for the arts: "Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil?," she said in her acceptance speech at the Academy Awards in 2003. "Because art is important. And because you believe in what you do and you want to honour that, and it is a tradition that needs to be upheld."

She stood by her husband, country music singer Keith Urban, through his battle with addiction. She spoke for many partners and wives, and husbands, too, when she said: "You cannot save someone, but you can love them."

In 2006, Kidman was named - and continues to serve - as the Goodwill Ambassador of UN Women, the United Nations Development Fund for Women. "I see my role as an advocate to end violence against women and girls," she told the gala dinner celebrating the 20th anniversary of the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women on 16 November 2016. "It is one of the most important roles of my life."

She has travelled to countries like Kosovo in Southeast Europe, where she met women and girls who'd survived violence. The UN helped these women receive shelter, counselling, education on sustainable ways to support themselves.

She is a UNICEF Ambassador for Australia.

She is the Ambassador of the Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick.

She has served as patron of the Australian Theatre of Young People.

She and Urban helped raise nearly half a million dollars for the Women's Cancer Program, which conducts research into the causes, treatment, prevention and eventual cure of women's cancer.

As well as all this, she is a mother.

Kidman has said she is "never happier than when she’s spending time with her family". She has two children with Urban, Sunday Rose, eight, and Faith Margaret, six. She also has two children with previous husband and fellow actor Tom Cruise; Isabella, 24, and Connor, 21.

Kidman would love to have another child. She and Urban are trying for another baby in 2017.

"In everything that has happened in my life, being a mother has been the overriding thing that has changed everything and made it better," she told The Sun on the weekend. “I still have the faintest hope that something may happen to me this year. Keith and I would love to have more babies. My grandmother gave birth to my mother at 49. I would be beyond happy and just welcome it with open arms.”

I hope that these are the thoughts going through her mind as she sits and celebrates the 74th annual Golden Globe Awards. She should be proud of her decathlon of nominations; the 33 years of success she's had in a tough, almost un-imagineable industry; the work she's done for chratiy, for women around the world; and the way she's raised her family.

More than that though we should be proud. Golden Globe Award or not, Nicole Kidman is a true Australian hero. Often underestimated, criticised even, but always the image of poise, success and, most of all, heart.