“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 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 inexplicably wonderful career. Thank you so much. Thank you.”
Meryl so often hits acceptance speeches out of the park that I had a few people remark to me that her Oscar speech wasn’t as impressive as the occasion warranted. But really, take a minute to read the end of the speech (quoted above.)
Amid cries year after year that she’s long overdue, it takes 20 years for the Academy membership to finally relent and reward Meryl with a second Best Actress Oscar. Her name gets called, she glides up on stage, endures a passionate, forceful standing ovation from some of the most famous and (at least superficially) influential people in the world, all of whom know that the name Meryl Streep is metonymy for acting genius, and all she has to say is that, after all this time and all this fervor, the award doesn’t mean nearly as much to her as it did to the rest of us. Once again, Meryl upstages the rest of us, reminding the half billion people watching around the world that as nice as a second Oscar is, all she really cares about - all that ever really matters for anyone - are the people we meet in life.
One’s life must matter, indeed.
Happy Meryl Streep Day.
