16 June 1018, Barker Hangar, Santa Monica, California, USA
Since I know there are many young people watching this, and even to the adults too, they could probably use the reminder that I was taught – that if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say it.
There should be no space in this world for bullying, and I'm not going to tolerate it and neither should any of you. If you need a reminder of how worthy you are, and to rise above the hate, message me on Instagram.
10 June 2018, Radio City Music Hall, New York City, USA
At a moment in time where maybe the most important thing that we remember right now is the sanctity of the human spirit, it is the profound privilege of my life to play Prior Walter in Angels in America because he represents the purest spirit of humanity, and especially that of the LGBTQ community.
It is a spirit that says no to oppression. It is a spirit that says no to bigotry, no to shame, no to exclusion.
It is a spirit that says we are all made perfectly. And we all belong. So I dedicate this award to the countless LGBTQ people who have fought and died to protect that spirit, to protect that message for the right to live and love as we are created to.
We are all sacred, so let’s just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked!
17 April 2018, Los Angeles, USA
Okay, so I'm hyperventilating a little bit. If I fall over, pick me up cause I've got some things to say. So I think this is what Chloe Kim must have felt like after doing back-to-back 1080s in the Olympic halfpipe. Did you see that? Okay, that's what it feels like.
I want to thank Martin McDonagh, look what you did. We are a bunch of hooligans and anarchists but we do clean up nice. I want to thank every single person in this building. And my sister Dorothy. I love you, Dot. And I especially want to thank my clan, Joel and Pedro "McCoen." These two stalwart individuals were well-raised by their feminist mother. They value themselves, each other and those around them. I know you are proud of me and that fills me with everlasting joy.
And now I want to get some perspective. If I may be so honored to have all the female nominees in every category stand with me in this room tonight, the actors—Meryl, if you do it, everybody else will, c'mon—the filmmakers, the producers, the directors, the writers, the cinematographer, the composers, the songwriters, the designers. C'mon! Okay, look around everybody. Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed. Don't talk to us about it at the parties tonight. Invite us into your office in a couple days, or you can come to ours, whatever suits you best, and we'll tell you all about them. I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: 'inclusion rider.'
10 June 2019, Radio City Music Hall, New York, USA
I've never won a nomination for acting before, so I wanna tell you how I did it.
I got in a play written by Kenneth Lonergan. It was about his family, I played his grandmother. My director was Scott Ellis, my producer was Scott Rudin.
My family was played by everyone you've ever wanted to be on stage with. Joan Allen was my daughter, Lucas Hedges was my grandson, David Cromer was my son in law and Michael Cera was my only friend. And, at the end of the play, I died. Now, my death was described onstage by Lucas Hedges so brilliantly. He described it, so heartbreaking, he was so touching, that watching from the wings, I thought, 'I'm gonna win this guy's Tony.'
23 March 1998, Shrine Auditorium and Expo Centre, California, USA
Marty, it's backwards, I should be giving this to you, believe me. And I want to thank the Board of Governors for this cute little fella which to me looks titanic. Tonight, words seem inadequate. In musicals that's when we do a song, so... [music begins, singing:]
Heaven, I'm in heaven,
and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak,
and I seem to find the happiness I seek,
when we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.
[Does a brief tap dance; continues speaking with the music.]
I'm going to let you in on the secret of being a good director. For the script you get Larry Gelbart, or Peter Stone, or Huyck and Katz, or Frederic Raphael -- like that. If it's a musical, for the songs you get George and Ira Gershwin, or Arthur Freed and Herb Brown, or Leonard Bernstein and Comden and Green, or Alan Lerner and Fritz Loewe -- like that. Then you cast Cary Grant, or Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Sophia Loren, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Gregory Peck, Elizabeth Taylor, Burt Reynolds, Gene Hackman or Frank Sinatra -- like that. When filming starts you show up and you stay the hell out of the way. But you've got to show up, you've got to show up. Otherwise you can't take the credit and get one of these fellas. Thank you very much.
10 February 2019, London, United Kingdom
Thank you so much. It's really big.
I don't know -- I do know what to say. I have actually written something down. I do know.
To my fellow nominees, to be in the same company as you is such an extraordinary honour. I think the work you all did was so beautiful.
Very shaky. Sorry. I can't read it either.
All the producers. Fox and Element and everyone therein. And Nadia and Sandy and all of your teams. Hi. We're having an amazing night, aren't we? We're going to get so pissed later!
Yorgos Lanthimos -- I don't know, I can't think of the words to thank you enough for letting me do this. My most favourite time ever.
The thing I really want to do is, Emma and Rachel -- must keep it together -- not just for your performances but for what you did after the cameras stopped rolling. And we've never talked about this, and I find it very emotional, but you were the best and classiest and coolest honour guard any woman could ever have, and I love you. Ems isn't here, but we love you too, Em, somewhere in America.
Oh, God, what else am I meant to say? Done that bit. I think I have done that bit ...
Yes. So this is -- sorry. I swear I'm going to go in a minute!
This is for -- not for the lead, it's for a lead, and as far as I'm concerned, all three of us are the same and should be the lead, and it's weird that we can't do that. But this is for all three of us. It's got my name on it, but we can scratch in some other names.
Thank you so much.
21 March 1994, Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, Los Angeles, USA
[Long excited silence]
I'd like to thank the Academy for the honor of letting me be here today. I'd like to thank Jane, Jan and Holly for making this all possible. I'd like thank Eddie Campbell, Pat Quirke, and Beanie* for taking such good care of me during the making of the film.
24 February 2019, Los Angeles, California, USA
The word today is “irony.” The date, the 24th. The month, February, which also happens to be the shortest month of the year, which also happens to be Black History month. The year, 2019. The year, 1619. History. Her story. 1619. 2019. 400 years.
Four hundred years. Our ancestors were stolen from Mother Africa and bought to Jamestown, Virginia, enslaved. Our ancestors worked the land from can’t see in the morning to can’t see at night. My grandmother, Zimmie Shelton Retha, who lived to be 100 years young, who was a Spelman College graduate even though her mother was a slave. My grandmother who saved 50 years of Social Security checks to put her first grandchild — she called me Spikie-poo — she put me through Morehouse College and NYU grad film. NYU!
Before the world tonight, I give praise to our ancestors who have built this country into what it is today along with the genocide of its native people. We all connect with our ancestors. We will have love and wisdom regained, we will regain our humanity. It will be a powerful moment. The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let’s all mobilize. Let’s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let’s do the right thing! You know I had to get that in there.
6 January 2019, Los Angeles, USA
Oh my gosh! Thank you so much Hollywood Foreign Press, this is such a great honor. And I'm so honored to be with my category sisters. And we've gotten to know each other a little bit so far and I can't wait to spend more time with you. Everything that you did this year—or, what you're here for—we all should be up here together.
I want to thank Meg Wolitzer for writing this incredible novel and Jane Anderson for adapting it, Rosalie Swedlin and Claudia Bluemhuber for the passionate—it took 14 years to make this film! I was attached to it thanks to my wonderful Kevin and Franklin who were behind me and said, "Yes, this is a great story and we need to stay with it until it happens."
You know, it was called The Wife. I think that's why it took 14 years to get made. To play a character who is so internal, I’m thinking of my mom who really sublimated herself to my father her whole life. And in her 80s she said to me, "I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything."And it was so not right. And I feel like what I've learned from this whole experience is, women, we’re nurturers, that’s what’s expected of us. We have our children, we have our husbands if we're lucky enough, and our partners. But we have to find personal fulfillment. We have to follow our dreams. We have to say, "I can do that, and I should be allowed to do that."
When I was little I felt like Muhammad Ali, who was destined to be a boxer. I felt destined to be an actress. I saw the early Disney films and Hayley Mills and I said, Oh, I can do that! And I’m here today. It will have been 45 years in September that I am a working actress, and I cannot imagine a more wonderful life.
Thank you Björn Runge who is here who directed The Wife, who trusted the close up, who knew where to put the camera and how to light us. Jonathan Pryce, what a great partner. My daughter Annie who laid the foundation of this character, I love you my darling. Thank you so much.
6 January 2018, Los Angeles, California, USA
Thank you, Chris [Pine], for those kind words! And Sam [Elliott, who narrated an introductory video], where is Sam? Oh, man. The stranger. Oh, man. Thank you, Hollywood Foreign Press, this is really a wonderful honor. I’m so challenged up here, because there are so many people to thank, you know? It’s a collaborative art form here. I’m gonna, I’m gonna thank some folks. I’m gonna thank my sweetheart, Sue. My God! Forty-five years of support and love. I wouldn’t be up here without you, my dear. And my brother Beau. Sister, Cindy. Your love and support. And how lucky are we to have our folks, man? Lloyd and Dorothy! Aghhhhh. Thank you! I’m wearing your cuffs, Dad. I’m wearing your cuff links. They’re your dad’s, too.
Oh, man. I’ve gotta thank my representatives. I don’t know where — wave your hands, guys, I want to see if I can — they’re keeping the whole boat afloat. I can’t see ya. There they are: David Schiff, Rick Kurtzman, Jean Sievers, Bob Wallerstein, Liz Dalling, my trusty assistant Becky Pedretti. Who am I forgetting? Oh, Frank Page. You know who I gotta mention is Loyd Catlett. He’s my stand-in. We’ve done close to 70 films together. Can you believe that? He’s the thread through the whole deal, starting from “Last Picture Show.”
And speaking of “Last Picture Show,” I’ve gotta thank my dear friend Peter Bogdanovich, who kicked the whole party off for me, man. I’m so blessed to have him start my whole career. Let’s see, well, the brothers. The Coen brothers, c’mon. I mean, true masters. If I’m lucky, I’ll be associated with the Dude for the rest of my life. I feel so honored to be a part of that film. Great movie.
And look at my brother, Steve Kloves, right? “Fabulous Baker Boys.” First time out and he comes up with that great movie. I gotta thank him. I gotta thank Scott Cooper. I don’t know if Scotty is here tonight, but “Crazy Heart.” Yeah, man, huh? Scott, man. Sets a great vibe to make wonderful things happen.
Oh, another first-time guy I was so lucky to work with: the late, great Michael Cimino, who directed “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.” That was his first movie. I can remember going into his office the day before we started shooting, and I said to Mike, “Man, I’m so sorry, but I think you made a terrible mistake. I’m not feeling this guy at all. I feel so inadequate. I’m giving you late notice, I know, but please fire me.” He looked at me and said, “Jeff, you know the game tag?” I say, “Yeah.” He says, “You’re it.” I say, “What do you mean I’m it?” He says, “You are the guy. You couldn’t make a mistake if you wanted to. You know, the life of this character is coming through you. It’s a done deal.” I say, “Oh, all right. That’s a wonderful vote of confidence and a great perspective to look at this thing.”
And I used it, of course, in that film — and in all the other movies that I’ve done, as well as my life. You know, I’ve been tagged. I guess we all have been tagged, right? We’re all alive. Right here, right now! This is happening. We’re alive!
Being in the life of the movies, you know, I kind of look through my life through the filter of movies. I find directors and fellow actors all over the place in my life. One guy, he had nothing to do with the movies, but I’ve taken a lot of direction from him. That’s Bucky Fuller. Bucky, he’s most famous for the geodesic dome, but he made a great observation about these oceangoing tankers. And he noticed that the engineers were particularly challenged by how to turn this thing, you know? They got this big rudder, it took too much energy to turn the rudder to turn the ship. So they came up with a brilliant idea. Let’s put a little rudder on the big rudder. The little rudder will turn the big rudder, the big rudder will turn the ship. The little rudder is called a trim tab.
Bucky made the analogy that a trim tab is an example of how the individual is connected to society and how we affect society. And I like to think of myself as a trim tab. All of us are trim tabs. We might seem like we’re not up to the task, but we are, man. We’re alive! We can make a difference! We can turn this ship in the way we wanna go, man! Towards love, creating a healthy planet for all of us.
So I wanna thank the Hollywood Foreign Press for tagging me, and I wanna tag you all. You’re all trim tabs. Tag, you’re it! Thank you!
18 August 2018, Los Angeles, California, USA
Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Thank you. I’m just going to quit while I'm ahead! Oh, my goodness, goodness, goodness. This is very exciting. I thought the biggest, most exciting night I had ever had, I'm talking to Lorne Michaels now, was the night that he gave me an honor. But boy, you topped yourself tonight, Lorne.
(She stops to let Alec Baldwin kiss her hand.) You think i'm going to miss a chance when I get it?
Somebody said something the other day about 'First Lady of Television.' And I took it as a big compliment. And then I heard her talking to her daughter a little later, she said, ‘First lady, yes, she's that old, she was the first one, way, way back.’ But little did I dream then that I would be here. It's incredible that I'm still in this business, that I'm still -- and you are still putting up with me.
No, I’m thanking you. It's incredible that you can stay in a career this long and still have people put up with you. I wish they did that at home. I want to thank Lorne Michaels for doing not only this tonight, but all the wonderful things he's done with me -- no, for me. And all I can say is, it's such a blessed business to be in, and how lucky can I be, and how much I say, thank you to each and every one of you. Thank you so much.
21 March 2018, Eternity Playhouse, Sydney, Australia
Imagine a time when you could stand where I am now and look down the hill to the wetlands and sunset orange water of the harbour.
Imagine the sight of towering trees that reached for the sun, a sight that has long been replaced with concrete and steel.
Imagine the feel of the rock and dirt beneath your feet and the memory of familial footprints that go back millennia. Imagine the smell of rotting undergrowth, sweet flowers and a bitter taste of smoke from camp fires cooking fur-covered meats.
Listen to the sound of women singing songs whilst fishing from their nawi, the sound wafting over still waters and carrying up the hill to your ear. Imagine hearing the scolding of overactive children who threaten to tip their precarious bark endeavours.
This is where we are. That time is here now among us, not the past. Though the clocks, calendars and cartography tell us That World has passed and been shaped by other forces, we will forever live in the memory of the time we are using our imaginations to remember.
We may never have known it but that time lives in the memory of this place and The Now is a moth newly born, emerging from the underside of a leaf without knowing it is destined to live for three transits of the sun and moon.
It thinks now is all there is, without sense of the age of the leaf or tree or the connection of the tree to the ground and its roots and the cycles of droughts and floods or the scars in its bark or the many children it has around it struggling for the sunlight and place to grow.
The Now is a moth that eats and mates and dies without ever knowing forever.
Imagine now thousands of witnesses gathering on the rocky outcrops, beaches and bays; from high vantage points and low. Imagine as they see, almost 250 years ago, a travel-weary ship catching robust gusts in its grey white sails, like flapping wings, see as they saw the ship arrive.
A sense of wonder, a sense of curiosity, a sense of fear, a sense of story – stories told and stories to be told. These gathered Eora.
Now imagine the stories that are forgotten, the stories left untold and the great distraction that ensued. Do not be misled, the now time is a distraction from the lessons learned of the past, the now is a moth with no sense of the long deep memory of our history here.
The white sails have fluttered and blustered, ate, mated and inevitably will die leaving only the tree to remember the story of the moth-like now. The act of feeding ourselves, the cultural practice of welcomes, elders, the care of country, story, ceremony, teaching the next generation and remembering the generations that went before.
All this memory will lead us to a stronger place on this Land … if we learn to embrace it … or we will die like the moth.
In this I remember and give thanks to the elders who have gone before us, who even now are amongst us and guiding us. Their invisible hand has brought us here to this place and time, here in this room of tempers and temperance.
One such hand is the ghost white invisible hand of Nick Enright. And I will remember him here.
His was a hand that could support and guide, deliver a loving caress and a stinging slap.
His hand can be seen in the careers of many, in the institutions he was a part of, in his plays, his signature, in the quiet corners where conversations would happen and the pulpits from which he would sermon.
His handprint sits like a stencilled mark on my heart.
Put your hand up if you ever studied with Nick Enright, worked with him, if he ever did you a favour, if you ever ate a meal with him, if you’ve read his plays, seen them or acted in them.
Put your hand up if you heard a story told about Nick Enright, his ability to love and share. He is everywhere in Australian theatre.
The invisible and visible hand of Nick Enright is all around us and lives on in us. I even now have to imagine Nick is still with us when I face a moral or ethical dilemma and I think:
WWND – What Would Nick Do?
And several times when there has been a play that needs a senior guiding hand, a playwright in search of a dramaturg, or a student in need of a teacher I have thought:
WTFINWYNH – Where the fuck is Nick when you need him?
But mostly I think:
IMNE – I Miss Nick Enright.
The hand that could give a loving touch, lift you up in support and the hand that could slap you so hard you would sting for days, months, years.
His hand hit me once. It felt like a slap even though he never touched me. The slap came in the form of a preview ‘talking to’ where he criticised my lack of judgement on the work we had done together on The Sunshine Club.
This was a musical about black and white dance halls across the country post WWII. He had drawn my attention to the subject a few years earlier and championed me through the process with the great support of Robyn Nevin.
His criticism was harsh and personal and so, so right; he cut me, he slapped me away when I demanded to be cared for and nurtured. He was tough when I wanted him to be tender. I didn’t talk to him for almost three years, such was my shame. Not until he was sick.
He had pointed out my indulgence and refused to allow me to charm my way out the situation or play a race card or demand a different standard because I was Aboriginal and [this was] my first ever musical and my premiere season at the Opera House. He gave me no room to wriggle out. I didn’t know it at the time but he was teaching me even then. Like an old aunty’s tough love.
Never indulge in the self-referential sentimentality of autobiographic justification. The only real truth is the truth the audience demands from a story.
No matter how much you want to use your writing to heal yourself, write your personal story onto the public record, to be loved by others or pontificate about an injustice, your ultimate responsibility is to make sure the audience are receiving your story as it wishes to be told.
Nick was no saint but in his humanity he had this sense of selflessness and the honourable pursuit of writing that many of us share. To be the storyteller of the tribe. To tell the stories that answered a need, not necessarily for your own sense of ego but a broader need. I can’t say he never wrote his autobiography in his plays but I can say he never gave in to self-indulgence within the material.
He never wrote the play where the teacher falls in love with his student, but he came close with A Poor Student.
He never wrote the play about the childless man who ached to be surrounded by youthful exuberance and see the next generation flourish but he came close with The Man with 5 Children; he never wrote the play about being a gay man from the country but he came close when he wrote the book to The Boy From Oz; he never wrote the play about the crippling guilt of being white in a black country but he co-wrote the adaption of Cloudstreet and helped Jimmy Chi write his musicals, he helped me shape The Sunshine Club and many more.
In many ways he didn’t write his own story but he wrote for all of us and when he couldn’t he assisted us to write our own.
I will forever be grateful to Nick Enright. And in the deepness of time he will be remembered not only for his writing but also through his contribution to the many lives he touched, the many lives in this room and the countless others in the world outside. It is a great honour to deliver the inaugural Nick Enright Keynote. Thank you.
Smell the air
I believe storytellers play one of the most important roles in a society. They hold the history of the clan, the lessons learnt, they provide a vocabulary for change, they can entertain, educate, agitate, celebrate … storytellers excite a society, uniting them despite their differences by providing a single moment in time where you feel part of something bigger.
This is why the tribe hunts for us, gives us food, provides respite from the everyday pressures of survival, provides shelter… so that we can focus on telling their stories, refreshing the old and imagining the new. This is an unspoken contract with society.
We must be the best storytellers we can so that those storylisteners can understand their world better.
Growing up, my family and I would return to Stradbroke Island Minjeeribah across Quandamooka to attend family functions – weddings, funerals, birthdays. I have one memory of a wedding where Aunty Kath Walker – Oodgeroo Noonuccal – recited a poem for the gathering.
It’s a poem, I can’t find this exact line in her published writings and I suspect it was written for the occasion of my relatives’ wedding or an early draft of a later work.
I distinctly remember through the fog of time the breeze coming from the bay and the sun shining and her words – I am the Tree and the Tree is Me … She went on to ask the tree its history and memory of the world… in this one line I caught the sense of connection and responsibility.
Standing amongst my extended family, on an island that had seen countless generations birthed and marry and die. A place where stories had lain dormant and resurfaced, remembered and reshaped. It was the 1970’s, I would have been perhaps eight, and this line has stuck with me for the last 40 years.
The other distinct memory of that day was when Aunty Kath said the line – I am the Tree and the Tree is me – and another relative calling from behind saying, ‘She’d shit herself if the tree talked back to her’. Everybody laughed and the moment was gone. Whatever point she was trying to make evaporated. The transient laughter robbing that moment and taking me away from a time of thoughtfulness.
I have rewritten that line in my head over and over through the years… what if the call had been, ‘What did the tree say back to you, Kath?’, if he had included her so she could have responded. If he had broken the mood with a comic interruption but not departed the substance of the drama, if he had not set up a sense that we ‘the congregation’ were complicit in the rejection of the moment by addressing only us rather than the speaker.
It is weird how little things stick with you. I read this situation as apocryphal, the fate of a writer and the possible issues with audiences. Don’t get too serious for too long or you might lose your listener. Include their understanding of the moment for fear of them taking away your right to that moment as the storyteller.
Recently at APAM, Jacob Boehme gave a fantastic key note address where he played out an all too familiar conversation between a fictional black artist and white gatekeeper. The familiarity with the situation and responses were breathtaking.
‘I would like to give just one example of how the conventions of this sector and of a market such as this, could currently be interpreted from a First Nations perspective:
Whitefulla still has all the power, authority and autonomy to dictate what trading and economic system we operate under.
Whitefulla determines what excellence or quality is.
Whitefella still manages and has curatorial control of performing arts venues Blakfella could work in.
Whitefella still programs Blak stories either written or directed by whitefellas and determines the Blak narratives that audiences engage in.
Blakfulla says ‘fuck me’ if I’m gonna make a living from this, I better make the same kinda shit too’.
Blakfulla gets busy making that kinda work, that kinda narrative that intrigues, delights, traumatizes, tantalizes and satisfies the curious mind about Blakfellas culture, identity, traditions and modernity.
Blakfulla constantly talking about being a blakfella.
Blakfulla gets an opportunity to pitch their work.
Whitefella says ‘Not Aboriginal enough’ (true story).
Blakfulla has another go.
Whitefella says, ‘Now I want you to condense 70,000 years of ancestral lineage, of continuous culture and creative practice, of complex totemic, skin and ceremonial systems complicated by 229 years of colonization, survival, government and social policy that continues to actively oppress your peoples and sovereignty into a two minute elevator pitch or marketing blurb, but make it exciting and make it accessible.’
The audience were in stitches of laughter but backstage listening I was moved to tears. I couldn’t see who was laughing and it made me think in weird and wonderful ways. How often has this been the truth? How long has it gone unspoken? And why are they laughing? I couldn’t see their faces and I was concerned.
Who is this audience and their connection to what is being said?
Why should this truth telling be read as humour?
Why should we think that these words are entertainment? And is the message really getting through?
When I asked Jacob about this he said it was the blakfullas laughing the loudest – he said, ‘I totally understand the point you are making but my experience post speech was one of brother and sisterhood from our mobs and guilt and mea culpa from the words of non-Indigenous mob who spoke to me and in the eyes of those who wouldn’t.’ It is without doubt that Jacob had hit his mark.
But these two stories still have clear lessons for me – deliver your ideas too seriously and your message will be washed away – deliver your ideas too flippantly and you run the risk of your message being washed away – have nothing to say and you will be washed away. The pressure to fit a mould not always of your own making.
It is a very Goldilocks position – not too much, not too little but just right – but these two stories remind me why I wanted to be in the arts in the first place.
I wanted to tell the stories that were not being told, I wanted to speak up and say the things that were hard to say, I wanted to call out injustice.
I was attracted to the power of storytelling to change the hearts and minds of a congregation and through them the world. The artist tells stories to make sense of the world, to give an emotional vocabulary for the human condition in all its extremity, to help remember our collective history, to shine a light, to expose creation.
Idealistic? Maybe, but isn’t it the role of the young, the stubbornly progressive and the artist to be ambitiously idealistic?
Alas, the young grow more reasonable with age, the stubbornly progressive collapse under the weight of too too much disappointment, but the artist must continue to have ambitions for their community, society and country. For why else do we exist if not to stay true and hold a firm belief in our purpose and power, to help shape the world as we would want it to be?
Each of us here will have a story of the moment we felt that power. When the thrill of the voice excited us enough to motivate a life-long vocation. This moment gives us strength and pure, clarifying thought. It is this moment we return to at our darker times when confidence flees and the doubts pile up to block out the sun.
Everyone feels like this at some point. I remember one such moment on the Opening Night of The Sunshine Club at the Opera House. I sat eating jellybeans catatonic with doubt and felt abandoned to my own fears. The kind of fear that only others can help you escape but equally stops you from reaching out to them.
There is a balance between the need for professional confidence and professional doubt. Too much confidence can make you arrogant, too much doubt can cripple you. Artists need to negotiate with their demons and their cheerleaders and somehow never fully believe either.
We have to believe we are making a difference in the world, no wonder we gravitate to like-minded people to bolster our personal emotional resources, collaborators who agree with us, audiences who get what we are about, the good reviewers not the bad ones. I’ll come back to this idea.It is our sense of purpose we must constantly return to as a guide.
Why do we exist and why are we storytellers? Everyone will have a different answer but I would be concerned if any of you were primarily motivated by celebrity, cash and feeling safe.
Why are you an artist? A writer? A director? A performer?
I can also ask the same question of an audience member… why do you pursue an artistic experience? Fame, money, emotional security? Or in fact the exact opposite of these things – to experience something new, to share moments with others, to feel part of a group, to enrich my life, to be lifted to a state of ecstasy through extreme beauty.There is no long term artistic purpose in being agreeable, liked, or lauded.
There is no long term value in just telling a society what it already knows. Artists interrogate the norms and show the familiar from a new angle, perhaps as a warning, a clarion call to change or as a deep observation of human behaviour.
This is as old as time – from Medea to Hedda Gabler, from the creation stories of Maroochy and Coolum to The Drover’s Wife. But, in recent years I have witnessed a growing timidity in our cultural leadership and I include myself in this statement. Too concerned with upsetting audiences, politicians, sponsors, donors, funders so much so that we have become timid in our role as storytellers.
Have we forfeited the field and now find ourselves hiding behind remakes of classics, experimentations in form and a too often self-congratulatory malaise of irony and sarcasm?
Have we lost touch with our responsibilities to the tribe?
Let me digress here for a second. Is it just me or are we seeing more homophobia, racism, sexism on our stages?
And more often than not written by homosexuals, blackfellas and women. I’ve sat in a number of shows in the past few years and asked myself: are all these people sitting around me, laughing in the dark, laughing because they recognise the situation and the truth of it or are they laughing out of a sense of comic ridicule of the scenario playing out?
Are we laughing with or at? Are we the audience of like-minded people who can see the craft of the writer and read the nuance of the extremity being played out?Or are there some amongst us who recognise themselves on stage and easily side with the racist character/statement/situation with a forgiving chuckle.
As I sit in the dark engulfed by the sea of white middle class urbania and feel the tide of my own discomfort ebb and flow, I am struck with the thought – what are they laughing at?
When confronted I have heard writers say, ‘Yes I’m telling racist jokes but I’m doing it ironically’, ‘Yes I’m using the trope of sexualised female characters but it’s a parody’, ‘ but the prejudiced position I’m using is sarcastic, I’m inciting debate and discussion.I don’t believe in what the characters are saying’.
Call me old fashioned but I reckon if you are not busying yourself deconstructing the status quo you are making a decision to unconsciously construct it.
Can an audience read the difference between the ironic use of racist jokes, stereotypes or rhetoric and flat out racist slurs? Sarcasm and irony are very dull tools to sharpen a political message.
Like with the speech from Jacob, I get that the words are dripping with irony and sarcasm because I am part of the in-crowd but if you are not ‘in on it’ are you receiving the intention of the artist?
We can all name shows where we have laughed because we are part of a crowd who get it. The fabulous works by Declan Green and Nakkiah Lui, two writers I adore and get excited as they twist and turn the stereotypes in the best escalations of farce and comedy.
But I am left with a gnawing question – what happens if the audience don’t understand our history; if they have emerged from under the leaf and can only see what is front of them and think this is the whole world?
I can hear the defences – we can’t go at the pace of the slowest, we can’t ignore the pre-existing body of work, audiences are smarter than that, we Trojan Horse our messages inside the comedy, or you have to give the people what they want.
I think there is a shrinking body of contemporary Australian work that is so bold as to express big ideas clearly through characters that are unambiguous about their thoughts on the world. We are seduced by the recrafting of a classic, the popular forms of comedy and music theatre, of well worn paths, the acceptable and legitimate.
I know that it’s not easy. God knows you talk with Patricia Cornelius, Alana Valentine and Stephen Sewell and they will attest to the difficulties of writing the powerful stories of importance to our country and then getting them in front of an Artistic Director let alone an audience.
But I can’t help thinking we are conveniently writing, not for the whole tribe and welcoming them in, but for the small number who already agree with us. Hiding small Easter Eggs in our works in a kind of literary wink to our peers.
I wonder if we have become accustomed to subverting our messages and burying them deep in things that make them acceptable, tame and palatable? And along the way shaping the taste of the audience to the point that they have become less interested in the artist’s voice, lost the stomach for risk, and so it becomes a self-serving cycle – we modulate our work to not offend the audience, the audience becomes less skilled at dealing with big ideas, we further bury our voice and so on and so on.
And those who are seeking the voice of the artist to help explain their world, the audience who crave big ideas to shape new thoughts, explore the edge of human experience are left disappointed.
This is a time to be brave before it is too late.
Where is the play about Treaty and Sovereignty in Australia?
Where are the new voices talking about feminism and inequity, where is the artistic work that will support the #metoo and Times Up actions? Climate change? Manus Island? The greater class divides growing in our country? The intergenerational burdens?
We all know of artists creating this work with heart and nuance and the rare examples of where they have found their way to the stage. Maybe we are caught in a cyclical trap of fashion where we merely tire of the companies, artists and works who strike out to make a difference.
We fund and defund, support and drop as we follow the next wunderkind, international trend or cause celebre. Like the politics of our era we are scared to express our values through our work.
We don’t talk about our core beliefs or the national cultural project we are involved in.
We get caught in the economic justifications for supporting artists and avoid discussions about intrinsic value and the millennia old role of the storyteller.
We let that deep history sit in the background and allow people to forget the importance of Art.
We have vacated the territory we inherited and we are to blame.
We are complicit through our self-censorship as well as the censorship of others.
The growing disrespect of story and storytellers is because we are not mounting the winning arguments. I can hear it – I think I’ve even said it at times – it won’t sell, no one wants to hear that story, you need to build your audience up first, isn’t that a little old fashioned, do you want to be known as that writer, politics is a background not a foreground in a good play.
We have been conditioned in ways to shrink ourselves and in many ways shrink the cultural voice of our nation. We have abandoned bravery in favour of bankability, we have accepted commercial precedent and formula rather than succeed in our responsibility to the tribe.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti-popular, I am not suggesting we should perform our work alone in a room and expect the tribe to support us. Quite the opposite. We must fiercely pursue the popular – Vox Populi Vox Dei – but we must embrace the discomfort of a forward-thinking vision for a future rather than the comfort of an imagined nostalgia when the world was easier.
I can tell you the world is much easier for me and my family now than 50 years ago. Any nostalgia would never have included me.
At the extremes, I think producers look to the comfort of precedent, the reliability of what has gone before, what has worked, the power of recognition for an audience. It is more known, predictable, more calming. Producers will give importance to the managing of risk, sometimes minimising risk, some would like to totally remove risk. This means looking into the past, analysing data and finding a formula to predict a future.
But an artist lets history sit in our creative landscape and we stare out to the horizon. A good artist is connected to their community, in constant dialogue and through their work speaks an osmotic truth. Artists and creative thinkers are spending their time imagining new futures, new ways of being, new inventions. And as in industry, the ability to explore and fail is so powerful and more often than not antithetical to market forces.
Market forces can often create stagnation in the creative arenas and that is why research and development departments exist in large multinationals. Google spent close to $10 billion dollars on R&D in 2014 or 15% of their revenue; Tesla, Apple, Boeing all realise that market competitiveness means you have to invest in R&D.
Artists are the research and development department of a society. We are attracted to the most dramatic and energetic situations in a community and we seek to expose it, explore it … to go where no mere mortal would dare go, is too scared to go.
We live the contradiction of being outsiders and deeply embedded in our community.
We play a national role to give voice to the silent, provide visions of a future, help create vocabularies for change, and to use our time on this planet making it a better place.
We play a role that comes with this responsibility but are we playing that role adequately?
Artistic Directors are the unelected representatives of a Cultural Parliament and as such they have many constituents they are indebted to, but they are artists: their role is to champion the artistic pursuits of an organisation, represent the conversations of artists in a community but I am increasingly worried that these roles are being diluted and Artistic Directors are being pressured to abandon the brave in favour of commercial yardsticks.
I know it’s a balancing act but the weight of safety cannot be allowed to crush the natural artistic need to risk it all.
As a side bar, I am interested in the role of these collaborations/dramaturgy in the supporting of new works.
Like Jacob, I am keen to have strong Indigenous voices that reflect cultural and artistic authority. Artistic Directors are making choices to change the status quo or not and are empowered to do so or not.
On two occasions in the past five years I have heard of literary managers of large companies taking the credit for ‘dragging the play’ out of First Nations writers and shaping it into the success it had become. I found this attitude a bit patronising and it raises questions about how works are shaped by the collaborators you allow in.
Oodgeroo writes in her poem Assimilation No – ‘Pour your pitcher of wine into the wide river, And where is your wine? There is only the river’.
How are we and our works being shaped by the gatekeepers and the shifting corporate culture of our publicly supported arts companies?
The more commercially interested the companies become the more they are under pressure to shape a program of activities around precedent, risk avoidance and the vocal minority of the offended. They provide feedback and shape works with this knowledge and inadvertently nudge and cajole writers into a box not of their own making. Like a wine flavoured river.
Alana Valentine writes in her new book Bowerbird, published by Currency Press: ‘Bad feedback will try to suggest how to make the play more like the one the dramaturg would like to write. Good feedback asks what you were trying to do in that moment and tells you that you need to work harder, more creatively, to achieve it. Great feedback pinpoints a problem you can see straight away.’
I am not rejecting the support from others but I am growing concerned that there is a superficial embracing of diverse writers with distinct voices, in this case Indigenous writers, but then no wholesale cultural investigation of where the work comes from and where is the right home.
I fear the writers know exactly the answers but are never asked or the companies are too scared to ask for fear that what is a precarious acceptance be complicated by messy differences and the writers are caught in a complicity of gratitude.
It is easier to comply and be rewarded by the like-minded, many who will eventually pay to see your work on their stage.
Do collaborators weaken your resolve or strengthen it? To the point eventually we end up getting a banana flavoured milkshake. We learn to accept that it is what it says it is but once you taste the real thing you realise it isn’t really. That stuff never grew in the ground.
The unspoken contract between our communities and us as storytellers demands that we are intrinsically intertwined, that we are responsible to be the eyes and ears for the people who are affording us the time to see and hear, and to think and speak.
To be a popular voice for the nation that we are shaping and which shapes us.
To pursue the hard to do more than the easy to say.
To not be reduced to our politics but be emboldened by the political.
To find the form in the content of the story and encourage deeper understanding.
To avoid the indulgences and the self-congratulation of the coterie of the like-minded whilst protecting our honourable and history laden vocation – to be the storyteller of the tribe.
The last word here I wish to give to Aunty Kath. Like all storytellers everything is filtered through a prism of what makes a good story, what makes the memory stick. I was talking to a family member about my memory of that statement ‘That Tree is Me and I am that tree,’ and they pointed me to a poem simply called ?
Sometimes you realise you are standing on the shoulders of giants, or in my case sitting in the bow of a tree that has been growing for over 1000 generations with a view out to the horizon and an imagination that stretches back to a time before time.
My 40-year-old memory may have chosen to recast her words to my own purpose or perhaps I had written and rewritten the phrase as a personal mantra but here is her poem.
‘Hello Tree
Talk to me.
I’m sick
And lonely.‘Are you old?
Trunk so cold.
What secrets
Do you hold?‘Talk tree!
Can’t you see;
My troubles
Trouble me.‘Silent tree
Let me see
Your answers
ANSWER ME.‘Tree!
You dare
Question ME?
How dare you
Dare, question ME.’
Thank you.
12 June 2014, Hyatt Century Plaza, Los Angeles, USA
Oh God, I'm out in public. Hmm. Thank you, Shonda, so much. You are such a gift to all of us, and the writer that you are has changed me as an artist, so thank you for that. I want to thank my whole team that's here — I have some pretty badass women on my team and they're all here. And the awesome men who have the courage to work with badass women, thank you. It's really thrilling to be in the presence of tonight's other honorees, I'm humbled to be in a group that includes my sister, Eva [Longoria]. Jennifer [Lee] I am totally fangirling because Frozen is on rotation in my house, and I just love it, love it, love it. And Cate Blanchett, you know how much I respect and adore you, and appreciate your existence. And Rose [Bryne], I'm a huge fan. I'm a huge, huge, huge fan, and it's really amazing to be in your company — all of you. So, I want to tell on myself, because a dear friend of mine, Pat Mitchell, who herself is a badass woman in the business, having run PBS and the Payley Center for Media, she called me a few years ago, because she for a long time worked for TED. I don't mean like a guy, Ted, like, TED, that thing where people give speeches and you watch them.
She called and said, ‘I’m going to be running TED Women and I would love for you to speak.’ And I said, ‘You know, gosh, you know what, Pat, I really appreciate the invitation, but I just don’t know really what I would say, I’m not sure what my story would be, I think I should decline, and maybe when I’m ready I’ll come do that.’ And Pat said to me, ‘Kerry, I’ve worked with TED for a really long time. No man has ever said to me, I’m not ready to speak, but for TED Women you are part of a long list of women who have denied me by saying they’re not ready.’ And I realized that what that meant is that we as women put ourselves in this situation of feeling like we can’t take a risk, like in order to step out there we have to be perfect, because we’re scared that if we don’t say the right thing, or do the right thing, that we’ll reflect poorly on ourselves and our community, whether that community be women, people of color, both.
So sometimes, we don’t step out there. And I’m telling on myself, because I didn’t [speak], even after Pat said to me, ‘This is so unfortunate, this is so wrong, women have to feel comfortable speaking out and stepping up, and standing in their light, and owning their voice.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you’re right. Good luck.’ I don’t do that often, but when I do, I know that it’s not good for me, and it’s not good for other women.
I work for a woman, Shonda Rimes, who [to Shonda, on stage] I'm going to talk about you like you're not here, who because of her courage to step into her light, and step up, and own her voice, has provided an opportunity for so many other women to soar, in front of and behind the camera. That's what happens when we step up for ourselves — we create opportunity, whether it's because we inspire other people or [points to Shonda] we employ other people or both. This award is named after Lucille Ball, an extraordinary woman in television, because she was an actor, a comedian, a director, a producer, a studio owner [chokes up]. It's an award for excellence, and so I'm going to take it home, and put it on my shelf as a reminder of what I should be striving for, which is excellence.
And as a reminder that I have to continue to step up [mic gives feedback]. That was the sign: 'Step up.' And I need to not be afraid, and we each need to not be afraid of taking those risks, that Cate [Blanchett] talked about. We need to be willing to be uncomfortable, to be flawed, to be imperfect, to own our voice, to step into our light, so that we can continue to inspire other people and employ other people, and make room for more and more voices and presence. I really want to thank each of you for being here tonight, for each of you who donated, not just because you got fancy gifts if you donated, but because you believe in the mission of Women in Film. So, I thank Women in Film, and I thank you, Shonda, and I just thank each of you for sharing in this extraordinary evening. And while I do love the word 'exceptional,' I hope that it is no longer exceptional very, very soon for women to do anything extraordinary in this business. Thanks.
17 October 2011, Four Seasons Hotel, Hollywood, Los Angeles, USA
…But what keeps me in the business is hope. And that’s the hope that women of color are also a part of the narrative, that our stories are just as potent because we also have the power of transformation. We also have the power to be quirky and sexy and different, funny, heartfelt, all of those things and I consider it to be larger purpose in life that keeps me in the business.
My mother has an 8th grade education and she started having children and got married at 15. Her mother got married at 15 and had babies – 18 children. My mom had 6. And she had all of her children in my grandmother’s house. My grandmother gave birth to all of us. And I happen to think that my mom’s story is very interesting and those are the stories I want to see on screen just as much as anybody else’s story. I always say I want to be Meryl Streep. And I believe and I really hope that we have the imagination and the courage to bring those stories to life because I want to do for other young women of color what Cicely Tyson did for me in that apartment with the slats showing the plaster and the bad plumbing and no phone and hardly any food and rats — is that she allowed me to have the visual of what it means to dream.
When I saw her in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman she threw me a rope and that’s what we do as performers, as actors, as icons we throw other people rope. And that’s what keeps me in it. And I stand in solidarity with everybody in this room sending a telepathic message to you every time some young actress of color comes into the room with a character they are auditioning for that’s not ethnically specific that you have a space in your brain that could open up and embrace them and allow them in because I’m telling you their lives are just as fascinating and multifaceted.
7 January 2018, Los Angeles, California, USA
Thank you all.
[Standing ovation.]
Okay okay! Thank you Reese.
In 1964, I was a little girl, sitting on the linoleum floor of my mother’s house in Milwaukee watching Anne Bancroftpresent the Oscar for best actor at the 36th Academy Awards.
She opened the envelope and said five words that literally made history.
“The winner is Sidney Poitier.”
Up to stage came the most elegant man I’d ever seen. His tie was white and of course his skin was black, and I’d never seen a black man celebrated like that.
What a moment like that means to a little girl, a kid watching from the cheap seats, as my mom came through the door, bone tired from cleaning other people’s houses.
All I can do is quote and say that the explanation of Sidney’s performance in Lilies of the Field: “Amen, amen. Amen, amen.”
In 1982 he received the Cecil B. DeMille award, and it is not lost on me that at this moment there are some little girls watching, as I become the first black woman to be given this award
It is an honour, and it is a privilege to share the evenings with all of them, and also the incredible men and women who inspire me and sustain me. Dennis Swanson who took a chance on me forA.M. Chicago. Quincy Jones, who saw me on the show and said to Steven Spielberg, she’s Sophia in The Color Purple. Gayle, who’s been a friend and Stedman, who’s been my rock.
I’d also like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press. We all know the press is under siege, the it’s the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and injustice, to tyrants, and victims and secrets and lies. I want to say that I value the press more than ever before as we tried to navigate these complicated times.
And I’m especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories.
What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have, and I’m especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories.
Each of us in this room are celebrated because of the stories that they tell, and this year we become the story.
But it’s not just a story affecting the entertainment industry. It’s one that transcends any culture, geography, race, religious, politics or workplace. I want to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault, because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue.
They’re the women whose names we’ll never know. They are domestic workers, and farm workers. They are working in factories and they work in restaurants and they’re in academia, engineering, medicine, and science. They’re part of the world in tech and politics and business. They’re our athletes in the Olympics, and they’re our soldiers in the military.
And there’s someone else: Recy Taylor. A name I know and I think you should know too. In 1944 Recy Taylor was a young wife and mother, walking home from a church service she’d attended in Abbeville, Alabama, when she was abducted by six white men, raped and left blindfolded by the side of the road coming home from church.
They threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone, but her story was reported to the NAACP where a young worker by the name of Rosa Parks became the lead investigator on her case and together they sought justice. But justice wasn’t an option in the era of Jim Crow. The men who tried to destroy her were never persecuted.
She died ten days ago, just shy of her 98th birthday. She lived as we all have lived, too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men. For too long women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power to those men. But their time is up. Their time is up!
[Standing ovation.]
Their time is up. And I just hope that Recy Taylor died knowing that her truth, like the truth of so may other women who were tormented in those years, and even now tormented, goes marching on.
It was somewhere in Rosa Park’s heart almost eleven years later, when she made the decision to stay seated on that bus in Montgomery, and it’s here with every woman who chooses to say, “Me, too,” and with every man who chooses to listen.
In my career what I’ve always tried my best to do is to say something about how men and women really behave, to say how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere, and we overcome.
I’ve interviewed and portrayed people who withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights.
So I want all the girls watching here, now, to know that a new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to ensure that they become the leaders that take us to a time when nobody has to say “Me, too,” again.
20 February 2009, Los Angeles, California, USA
thank you all very much. Eric Roberts. I just want to say one thing about Eric Roberts. Eric Roberts is probably the best actor I have every worked with I don’t know why in the last 15 years ain’t nobody give him a chance to show his shit again. Because whatever he did 15-20 years ago should be forgiven. No…I am goddam serious about that.
Eric Roberts is the fucking man. And he deserves like I have, like I got, he deserves a 2nd chance. And I wish there would be one goddam film maker in this room that would let him fly. Because the man, he is something else. Thank you Eric.
Eric Accept your award!
Eric will probably be arrested by the end of the day but.
Anyway, and that little blonde dude (Rainn Wilson) that did that thing I’m going to beat your ass when I get out of here.
It’s nice to be presented this award by all these talented, these two talented people, three talented, I don’t know what you do honey. These two are really good.
You know I’ve just gotten thousands of letters and shit, from people, strangers, and people that know me, about my dog that died 6 days ago Lokie. He got a little sad….Lokie this is for you baby.
I just got done talking to the Santa Monica police department. They gave me a bed to sleep in ten years ago. And I thanked them. I asked them for two pillows and they told me to fuck off. But anyway.
thank you to Darren Aronofsky for believing in me. Ugh directors like Darren Aronosky, come on let me finish, I told people in the past directors like Darren Aronofsky come around every 25 years the same way like Coppolla, Parker, all the rest of them and I said 25 years and he (Darren) whispered in my ear 30.
The only thing I want to say to any young actor or actress who gets an opportunity to work with Darren you better be in shape because he will break you down. He is one tough son of a bitch and he don’t like it when I say that… cause he says Mickey you will scare all the actors away from me. Darren you know what…if they don’t have the balls to bring it than fuck em, you know?
Anyway, I want to thank Fox Searchlight. Peter Rice and all the girls. Melissa and I don’t all their names, Ann, Maria, …he stumbled over his words….thank you very much. The little one I call “cap tooth. Uhhh, I know you’re here.
And I want to thank..uh my memory ain’t that good. Oh Jesus. I want to thank? Uhhhh…..uhhhh.
Audience: Marissa!
Melissa…oh Marissa, Marissa Tomei.” Goddammit she had to do this pole act, bare ass and she brought it and. She’s a very….is she here?”
No
OK. Anyway she looked. Not many girls could climb the pole. You understand what I’m saying? And she climbed the pole and she did it well. And I give her big props for that. It was a very coureagous performance. We had to like pry her out of the trailer, you know, but that was alright.
I want to thank the wrestling community who has been very supportive. The WWE. Vince McMahon. They supported us because we exposed some issues …[looks away]
Oh that’s pretty
... we exposed some issues in this film which were very controversial like the steroids and the cocaine and the banging the girl in the ass in the bathroom, but shit like that does happen, these guys are on the road a lot. And they get lonely. And uh
Scott Franklin, I got your name right, thank you very much, I know you’re looking for a job, any directors in here, he was a hell of a producer. And he’s broke right now. And uh, and gee whiz….who else…?”
Paula…the hardest girl in show business, my…she was…she was my publicist, she had her hands full. As I said in the BAFTA Awards, she told me where to do, what to do, what not to do, how to dress, who to fuck. Not to. You know. Paula I love you, you can go back to the farm after tomorrow. Uhhhh”
JP my manager and manager Kahla. God bless you. Thank you Peter Rice, your boss Jim Jimanoppolis, something like that (he couldn’t remember his name). Thanks for the money. Thank you all very much.
March 25, 1985, Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, CA, USA
Oh Benton, what you did for me. You changed my life, truly. This means so much more to me this time. I don’t know why I think the first time I hardly felt it because it was all so new. I owe a lot to the cast, to my players, to Lindsay and John and Danny, and Ed and Amy and my little friends Gennie and Yankton
I owe a lot to my family, for holding me together and loving me and having patience with this obsession and me. But I want to say thank you to you. I haven’t had an orthodox career, and I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can’t deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me!”
24 March, 2002, Kodak Theatre, Hollywood, CA, USA
Thank you very much ... that makes up for the strip search.
Let me tell you why I’m here exactlyAbout four weeks ago I was sitting home in my apartment in New York, and the phone rang, and a voice on the other end said, ‘this is the Motion Picture Academy Arts and Sciences’, and I panicked immediately, because I thought that they wanted their Oscars back. ‘Cause I’ve won a few Oscars over the years, and I thought that, you know, they were calling to get them back, and panicked because, you know, the pawn shop has been out of business for ages, and I have no way of retrieving anything, and they said, ‘no this was not it’ and I, I, couldn’t figure it out because my movie ‘The Curse of the Jade Scorpion’ was not nominated for anything this year, nothing, no category. And then it suddenly hit me, maybe they’re calling to apologise?
And I remembered during the course of the year, I had been walking on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, and a homeless man came up to me, and asked me if I could buy him lunch. And I didn’t buy him lunch, but I gave him fifty cents, and I thought maybe certain members of the Academy had witnessed this, and they were going to give me a Gene Herschell Humanitarian Award [laughter] because that’s what goes through your mind. I thought maybe that or a Thalberg or something, because you know you start calculating, I’m sixty six years old, a third of my life is over now ...[laughter] and you know, you start to think, maybe they want to honour me?
They said no, they said, here’s what the story is, in view of the terrible events that have occurred in New York over the last year, the Academy wanted to show support and make a nice gesture and put together a little film, paying tribute to movies that had been shot in New York over the years. And they wanted somebody to introduce it, and I said, ‘god you can do much better than me, you know, why not get Martin Scorsese or Mike Nichols or Spike Lee or Sidney Lumet,’ I kept naming names, you know, and said ‘look I’ve given you fifteen names of guys who are more talented than I am, and smarter and classier. They said, ‘yes, but they were not available’ so, for New York City, you knowI’ll do anything, I got my tux, I came out here, it’s a great great movie town. Ever since I was a little kid,,movies that I grew up on in New York, movies that were shot there, it’s been a great romantic and exciting backdrop for movies, New York, and it’s a great place to come and work and make your movies because it’s still a thrilling and very very exciting city.
In a couple of weeks I’m gonna be starting another movie, on the streets of New York, I’m going to be filming a romantic movie about a foot fetishist [laughter] interesting movie the guy is a foot fetishist and he falls in love with a beautiful Harvard professor. She’s absolutely beautiful and she’s absolutely brilliant, and, um, she writes this paper on existential philosophy, and he become sexually aroused by her footnotes .. [laughter] You know, I begin this in a few weeks in Manhattan, so I plead with you to please come, make the films there, it is, it remains a great great city. The film that you are about to see now, the clips, were loving put together by a terrific New York filmmaker, Nora Ephron, and you can roll this anytime you want now.
11 August, 2013, Gibson Amphitheater, Los Angeles, USA
What’s up? Oh wow. Okay okay, let’s be brutally honest — this is the old guy award, this is like the grandpa award and after this I gotta go to the geriatric home.
Um, First of all, um, I don’t have a career without you guys. I don’t get to do any of the things I get to do without you. Um you know, I thought that uh, it might be interesting.. You know In Hollywood and in the industry and the stuff we do, there’s a lot of like insider secrets to keeping your career going, and a lot of insider secrets to making things tick. And I feel like a fraud.
My name is actually not even Ashton. Ashton is my middle name. My first name’s Chris. It always has been. It got changed when I was like 19 and I became an actor, but there are some really amazing things that I learned when I was Chris, and I wanted to share those things with you guys because I think it’s helped me be here today. So, it’s really 3 things. The first thing is about opportunity. The second thing is about being sexy. And the third thing is about living life.
I believe that opportunity looks a lot like hard work. When I was 13 I had my first job with my Dad carrying shingles up to the roof, and then I got a job washing dishes at a restaurant, and then I got a job in a grocery store deli, and then I got a job in a factory sweeping Cheerio dust off the ground. And I’ve never had a job in my life that I was better than. I was always just lucky to have a job, and every job I had was a stepping stone to my next job and I never quit my job until I had my next job. And so opportunities look a lot like work.
The sexiest thing in the entire world, is being really smart. And being thoughtful. And being generous. Everything else is crap, I promise you. It’s just crap that people try to sell to you to make you feel like less, so don’t buy it. Be smart, be thoughtful, and be generous.
The third thing is something that I just re-learned when I was making this movie about Steve Jobs. And Steve Jobs said when you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way that it is, and that your life is to live your life inside the world and try not to get in too much trouble, and maybe get an education and get a job and make some money and have a family, but life can be a lot broader than that when you realize one simple thing, and that is that everything around us that we call life was made up by people who are no smarter than you, and you can build your own things, you can build your own life that other people can live in.
So build a life. Don’t live one, build one. Find your opportunities, and always be sexy. I love you guys.
