The Oscars will be upon us in two weeks and now it’s time for all the good old Academy stuff to come out of the storage. Oscar speeches are sometimes used by recipients as political statements, as expressions of sheer joy, and for a few others it may be plain routine as they have been up holding that statuette one too many times.
With the Harvey Weinstein cloud still looming large over Hollywood, and many actors who had thanked the producer in their Oscar speeches (Gwyneth Paltrow, Penelope Cruz) coming out against him, we take a look at some of the interesting speeches in no particular order.
Julie Andrews - Best Actress in a Leading Role for Mary Poppins (1965)
I know you Americans are famous for your hospitality, but this is really ridiculous. I have so many thank yous. I only know where to start and that's with Mr. Walt Disney, and naturally he has the largest thank you of all. I wouldn't know where to stop.
Charles Chaplin - for the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century.
Oh, thank you so much. This is an emotional moment for me, and words seem so futile, so feeble. I can only say thank you for the honor of inviting me here. And you're wonderful, sweet people. Thank you.
Marlon Brando - Best Actor for The Godfather (1972) (not present; award refused by Sacheen Littlefeather (aka Marie Cruz))
Sacheen Littlefeather speaks:
Hello. My name is Sacheen Littlefeather. I'm Apache and I am president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee. I'm representing Marlon Brando this evening and he has asked me to tell you in a very long speech, which I cannot share with you presently because of time but I will be glad to share with the press afterwards, that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry – excuse me – and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee. I beg at this time that I have not intruded upon this evening and that we will in the future, our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity. Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando.
Tom Hanks - Best Actor in a Leading Role for Philadelphia (1993)
I know that my work in this case is magnified by the fact that the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels. We know their names. They number a thousand for each one of the red ribbons that we wear here tonight. They finally rest in the warm embrace of the gracious creator of us all.
Robin Williams - Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting (1997)
Thank you. Ah, man! This might be the one time I'm speechless. Thank you so much for this incredible honor. Thank you for putting me in a category with these four extraordinary men. Thank you, Ben and Matt -- I still want to see some ID. Thank you, Gus Van Sant, for being so subtle you're almost subliminal. I want to thank the cast and crew, especially the people of South Boston -- you're a can of corn, you're the best. I want to thank the Meshpucha Weinstein. Mazel tov! And I want to thank Marsha for being the woman who lights my soul on fire every morning. God bless you. And most of all, I want to thank my father, up there, the man who when I said I wanted to be an actor, he said, "Wonderful, just have a back-up profession like welding." Thank you. God bless you -
James Cameron - Best Director for Titanic (1997)
I don't know about you but I'm having a really great time. Every director that ever stood up here had his cast to thank, and I had a killer cast. They really threw down for me. So, Kate, Gloria, Leo, Kathy, Frances and Billy, Bill, Suzy, Lewis, and about eighty others, you guys gave me pure gold every day and I share this gold with you. And my original producers, my parents, who are here tonight, Phillip and Shirley Cameron. Mom, Dad, there is no way that I can express to you what I'm feeling right now, my heart is full to bursting, except to say, "I'm the king of the world!"
Roberto Benigni - Best Actor in a Leading Role for Life is Beautiful (1998)
Thank you! This is a terrible mistake because I used up all my English. I don't know! I am not able to express all my gratitude, because now, my body is in tumult because it is a colossal moment of joy so everything is really in a way that I cannot express. I would like to be Jupiter! And kidnap everybody and lie down in the firmament making love to everybody, because I don't know how to express. It's a question of love. You are really -- this is a mountain of snow, so delicate, the suavity and the kindness, it is something I cannot forget, from the bottom of my heart. And thank you for the Academy Awards for the, who really loved the movie. Thank you to all in Italy, for the Italian cinema, grazie al Italia who made me. I am really, I owe to them all my, if I did something good. So grazie al Italia e grazie al America, land of the lot of things here. Thank you very much. And I hope, really I don't deserve this, but I hope to win some other Oscars! Thank you! Thank you very much! Thank you!
Gwneyth Paltrow - Best Actress in Leading Role for Shakespeare in Love (1998)
I would like to thank the Academy from the bottom of my heart. I would like to thank Emily Watson, and Fernanda Montenegro, and my friend Cate Blanchett, and the greatest one who ever was, Meryl Streep. I don't feel very deserving of this in your presence. But I would like to thank Harvey Weinstein and everybody at Miramax Films for their undying support of me.……
Julia Roberts - Best Actress in Leading Role for Erin Brockovich (2000)
Oh, thank you, thank you ever so much. I'm so happy. Thank you. I have a television*, so I'm going to spend some time here to tell you some things. And sir [speaking to music conductor Bill Conti], you're doing a great job, but you're so quick with that stick. So why don't you sit, 'cause I may never be here again.
I would like to start with telling you all how amazing the experience of feeling the sisterhood of being included in a group with Joan Allen and Juliette Binoche and Laura Linney and Ellen Burstyn for these last weeks has been. It's just felt like such a triumph to me to be in that list. But I can't believe this, this is so [looking at the Oscar]... this is quite pretty…..So I thank you for really making me feel so... [laughs!] I love it up here!
*(The Academy website notes that that then show producer had promised a giant, high-definition flat-screen digital television to the winner(s) who made the shortest acceptance speech)
Halle Berry - Best Actress in Leading Role for Monster’s Ball (2001)
Oh my God. Oh my God. I'm sorry. This moment is so much bigger than me. This moment is for Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll. It's for the women that stand beside me, Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox. And it's for every nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened. Thank you. I'm so honored. I'm so honored. And I thank the Academy for choosing me to be the vessel for which His blessing might flow.
Michael Moore - Best Documentary Feature (Bowling for Columbine in 2002)
I've invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to--they are here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons, whether it's the fictition of duct tape or the fictitious of orange alerts. We are against this war, Mr. Bush! Shame on you, Mr. Bush! Shame on you! And any time you've got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up! Thank you very much.
Penelope Cruz - Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008)
This is not going to be forty-five seconds, I can say that right now. Has anybody ever fainted here? Because I might be the first one.
Thank you so much to the Academy. I want to share this with my fellow nominees and with the amazing ensemble of actors that I had the privilege to work with in this movie. Thank you, Woody, for trusting me with this beautiful character. Thank you for having written over all these years some of the greatest characters for women. Thank you, Harvey Weinstein...
Kate Winslet - Best Actress in Leading Role for The Reader (2008)
Okay, that fainting thing, Penélope. I'd be lying if I haven't made a version of this speech before. I think I was probably eight years old and staring into the bathroom mirror and this [holding up her statuette] would've been a shampoo bottle. Well, it's not a shampoo bottle now! Dad, whistle or something, 'cause then I'll know where you are. [Loud whistle.] Yeah! I love you! And I want to acknowledge my fellow nominees, these goddesses. I think we all can't believe we're in a category with Meryl Streep at all. I'm sorry, Meryl, but you have to just suck that up! And just to the Academy, thank you so much. My God! Thank you!
Meryl Streep - Best Actress in Leading Role for Iron Lady (2011) (This is Streep’s third Oscar after winning one for Kramer vs Kramer and Sophie’s Choice)
Oh my god. Oh, c'mon! Oh! Alright. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. I -- when they called my name I had this feeling I could hear half of America going, "Oh no! Oh, c'mon why? Her? Again?" You know? But, whatever. [Laughs]
First I'm going to thank Don, because when you thank your husband at the end of the speech they play him out with the music, and I want him to know that everything I value most in our lives you've given me. And now secondly, my other partner. Thirty-seven years ago, my first play in New York City, I met the great hairstylist and makeup artist Roy Helland. And we worked together pretty continuously since the day we clapped eyes on each other. His first film with me was "Sophie's Choice," and all the way up to tonight when he won for his beautiful work in "The Iron Lady" thirty years later. Every single movie in between. And I just want to thank Roy, but also I want to thank -- because I really understand I'll never be up here again. I really want to thank all my colleagues, all my friends. I look out here and, you know, I see my life before my eyes: my old friends, my new friends. And really, this is such a great honor, but the thing that counts the most with me is the friendships and the love and the sheer joy we have shared making movies together. My friends, thank you, all of you, departed and here, for this, you know, inexplicably wonderful career. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Jennifer Lawrence - Best Actress in a Leading Role for Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
(Before getting on to the stage, Lawrence slipped on the steps)
Thank you. You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell and that's really embarrassing, but thank you. This is nuts. Thank you to the Academy and thank you to the women this year. You were so magnificent and so inspiring, and not just those of you in my category. And it has been so amazing getting to know you. And you've been so nice and you've made this experience unforgettable.
Cate Blanchett - Best Actress in a Leading Role for Blue Jasmine (2013)
Sit down; you're too old to be standing. Thank you, Mr. Day-Lewis*. From you it exacerbates this honor to it and it blows it right out of the ballpark. Thank you so much to the Academy. As random and as subjective as this award is, it means a great deal in a year of extraordinary – yet again – extraordinary performances by women. Amy Adams, everything you do, but your performance in "American Hustle" blew my mind. And Meryl, what can I say? Sandra, I could watch that performance to the end of time, and I sort of felt like I had. Julia, #suckit. You know what I mean? And to the audiences who went to see it, and perhaps those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the center are niche experiences. They are not. Audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. So... The world is round, people!
*(Daniel Day-Lewis presented the Oscar to Blanchett)
Matthew McConaughey - Actor in a Leading Role for Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
Thank you to the other nominees. All these performances were impeccable in my opinion; I didn't see a false note anywhere. I want to thank Jean-Marc Vallée, our director. I want to thank Jared Leto and Jennifer Garner, who I worked with daily.
…. So you see every day, every week, every month and every year of my life, my hero's always 10 years away. I'm never gonna be my hero. I'm not gonna attain that; I know I'm not. And that's just fine with me, because that keeps me with somebody to keep on chasin'. So to any of us, whatever those things are: whatever it is we look up to, whatever it is we look forward to, and whoever it is we're chasin'. To that I say: Amen. To that I say: Alright, alright, alright. To that I say: Just keep livin'. Thank you.
Lupita Nyong’o - Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years a Slave (2014)
Thank you to the Academy for this incredible recognition. It doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else’s. And so I want to salute the spirit of Patsey for her guidance.When I look down at this golden statue, may it remind me and every little child that no matter where you’re from, your dreams are valid. Thank you.
Patricia Arquette - Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Boyhood (2014)
To my heroes, volunteers and experts who have helped me bring ecological sanitation to the developing world with GiveLove.org. To every woman who gave birth. To every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else's equal rights. It's our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.
Leonardo Di Caprio - Best Actor in a Leading Role for The Revenant (2016)
We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this... Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted.
Viola Davis - Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Fences (2016)
Thank you to the Academy. You know, there's one place that all the people with the greatest potential are gathered. One place. And that's the graveyard. People ask me all the time, "What kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola?" And I say, exhume those bodies. Exhume those stories. The stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition. People who fell in love and lost. I became an artist, and thank god I did, because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life. So here's to August Wilson, who exhumed and exalted the ordinary people.
And, "O captain, my captain," Denzel Washington. Thank you for puttin' two entities in the driving seat: August and God. And they served you well.
(The speech extracts have been taken from www.oscars.org)
