1 March 2026, Los Angeles, California, USA
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Woody, for that restricted introduction. Thank you. I'm proud to call you my friend and a colleague. Thank you.
I feel incredibly grateful for this kind attention, but to be clear, I also am quite humbled. I'm in a room of actors, many of whom are here because they've been nominated to receive a prize for their amazing work. While I'm here to receive a prize for being alive. That said, it is a little weird to be getting a Lifetime Achievement Award at the half point of my career. It's a little early, isn't it? I'm still a working actor. I was not an overnight success. I struggled for about 15 years going from acting job to carpentry and back to acting until I finally got a part in a wildly successful film.
None of this happened on my own. Thank you, George Lucas. Thank you, Steven Spielberg. There were two other people. There were two other people who had a hand in guiding me through hard times.
Fred Roos, casting director and producer for Francis Ford Coppola. And my manager for 30 years, Pat McQueeney. They were both incredibly persistent and they supported me at a time when I really needed it. I would not be here without them. They're no longer with us, but it feels important that I think of them now. I feel them here tonight. They would be happy for me.
In my third year of college, I was a little lost. I was failing at school. I felt isolated, alone. And then I found the company of people putting on plays, storytellers. People I once thought were misfits and geeks turned out to be my people. I found a calling, a life in storytelling, an identity in pretending to be other people. The work I do with other actors is one of the great joys of my life. My career is built on their work, as well as the work of writers, directors, and every single cast member, every crew member I've ever been on a set with. I've had incredible collaborators at every step of the way. And being able to deliver the work we create together to an audience is an honour and a privilege.
And because of that privilege, I've come to know myself. This is a tough business to get into. In my case, it's been a tough business to get out of, thank God! Because I love what I do. As actors, we get to live many lives. We get to explore ideas that affirm and elevate our shared experience. The stories we tell have a unique capacity to create moments of emotional connection. They bring us together. So while we're all at different stages of our lives and careers in this room, we all share something fundamental. We share the privilege of working in the world of ideas, of empathy, of imagination.
Sometimes we make entertainment. Sometimes we make art. Sometimes we're lucky we make them both at the same time. And if we're really fortunate, we also get to make a living doing it. Success in this business brings a certain freedom that comes with responsibility to support each other, to lift others up when we can, to keep the door open for the next kid, the next lost boy who's looking for a place to belong. I'm indeed a lucky guy, lucky to have found my people, lucky to have work that challenges me, lucky to still be doing it. And I don't take that for granted. I want to say thank you truly from the bottom of my heart to my peers, to my extraordinary, beautiful wife, Calista, and my family, who have given me love and courage through all of it. And thank you to SAG/AFTRA for honouring me with this prize.
This is very encouraging.