this speech from Joaquin Phoenix 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 #Oscars pic.twitter.com/9GJqfeUapw
— Stefanie⁷ (@StefanieBe_) February 10, 2020

9 February 2020, Los Angeles, California, USA

[We have to] continue to use our voice for the voiceless. I've been thinking a lot about some of the distressing issues that we are facing collectively. I think at times we feel, or were made to feel, that we champion different causes, but for me, I see commonality. I think, whether we're talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we're talking about the fight against injustice. We're talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender or one species has the right to dominate, control and use and exploit another with impunity.

I think that we've become very disconnected from the natural world, and many of us, what we're guilty of is an egocentric worldview -- the belief that we're the center of the universe. We go into the natural world, and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow, and when she gives birth, we steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. Then, we take her milk, that's intended for her calf, and we put it in our coffee and our cereal, and I think we fear the idea of personal change because we think that we have to sacrifice something to give something up. But human beings, at our best, are so inventive and creative and ingenious, and I think that when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and to the environment.

Now, I have been a scoundrel in my life. I've been selfish. I've been cruel at times, hard to work with and ungrateful, but so many of you in this room have given me a second chance. And I think that's when we're at our best, when we support each other, not when we cancel each other out for past mistakes, but when we help each other to grow, when we educate each other, when we guide each other toward redemption. That is the best of community.

When he was 17, my brother wrote this lyric. It said, 'Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow.'"

3 February 2020, London, United Kingdom

The BAFTAS have always been very supportive of my career and I’ve always been appreciative. But I have to say that I also feel conflicted, because so many of my fellow actors that are deserving don’t have that same privilege.

I think that we send a very clear message to people of colour that you’re not welcome here.

I think that that's a message that we’re sending to people who have contributed so much to our medium and our industry and in ways that we benefit from.

I don’t think anybody wants a handout or a preferential treatment although that’s what we give ourselves every year. I think people just want to be acknowledged and appreciated and respected for their work.

This is not a self righteous condemnation, because I’m ashamed to say that I’m part of the problem, because I’ve not done everything in my power to ensure that the sets I’ve worked on are inclusive.but I think that it’s more than having sets that are multicultural, I think that we have to do the hard work to truly understand systemic racism.

I think that it is the obligation of the people who have created and benefit from a system of oppression to be the ones that dismantle it.

So that’s on us.