If Da’Vine Joy Randolph is, as predicted, announced as winner of the supporting actress Oscar at the 96th Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles next weekend, the actor from Philadelphia will have to stride up to the podium and come up with the goods yet again. She has already spoken well at both the Golden Globes and Baftas when honoured for her role in The Holdovers. Let’s hope she has something left in the bag.
For Wendy Shanker it is a familiar predicament. The American script-doctor is regularly called upon to write a few wise words for potential award winners and at this time of year her phone is red hot. “It can be difficult if you’ve already done acceptance speeches, like Da’Vine. She will want to have kept back something that’s unique for the Oscar. But then she might not get it,” she said this weekend. “So I often help clients find that fine balance between making the most of it and hanging everything on it.”
On Oscar night, television viewers might well suspect some of the victorious stars have not prepared a jot. Sadly, in Shanker’s view, this is often the case. “I wish they would all write something. It’s a mistake,” she said. “Everyone should; even the dark horse nominees, not just the favourites.” She suggests it is simply “gracious to prepare something”, rather than to hope to endear by stuttering out a few lines about gratitude and childhood destiny. “But I know why many don’t prepare. They are superstitious and I do understand that,” she said.
Certainly, the pressure on nominees in Hollywood’s Dolby theatre is immense. It is a career highlight like no other, after all. Even Steven Spielberg described it as “the best drink of water after the longest drought in my life” when he finally won for Schindler’s List in 1994. And, co-mingled with a fear of jinxing one’s luck, it is easy to imagine a parallel concern that looking too slick could look entitled.
Surely there are a few successful actors who don’t enjoy all the hoopla and who are quietly willing the statuette into another nominee’s hands? Generally not, says Shanker. “There are a few introverts, like Joaquin Phoenix, who really don’t like the pomp and circumstance. But for most it’s a dream, after years rehearsing an acceptance speech into their toothbrush.”
It was Phoenix who in 2020 gave a textbook seriously socially conscious speech when he won for Joker. He spoke at length about the shame of calves being taken from their mothers in service of milk production. “We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources,” he said. Was it a worthy use of a brief worldwide platform? Well, for Larry David it formed the basis of an episode of sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Woody Harrelson parodied an actor who brings his vegetarian politics to the microphone at a moment of triumph.
Other key political speeches from the Oscar archives include Michael Moore’s criticism of the Iraq War as he received an award for his 2003 gun-control documentary, Bowling for Columbine. Moore was booed and later recalled being told, “Wow, you really know how to ruin a standing ovation.” Vanessa Redgrave also went for broke when she criticised “Zionist hoodlums” who were giving Jews a bad name when she picked up a best supporting actress gong in 1978. Better received was Frances McDormand, a winner in 2018, who called on Meryl Streep to lead the crowd in taking to her feet in support of the women in the industry.
It is important to get your facts right though, as discovered by Spectre songwriter Sam Smith in 2016 after the false suggestion that “no openly gay man had ever won” before. Marlon Brando’s notorious decision to get actor Sacheen Littlefeather to turn down his 1973 award, in protest at the treatment of American Indians, was dented by the revelation she was not a Native American. (This year Lily Gladstone, descended from the Blackfeet and Nez Perce nations, may actually make history by winning for her role in Killers of the Flower Moon.)
Shanker is a fan of an emotional speech, as demonstrated by Sally Field in 1985, when she cried out deliriously: “I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!”. Many will also recall Gwyneth Paltrow’s tears when she won for Shakespeare in Love in 1999. Her father had just been diagnosed with cancer and so she was forgiven. Will Smith’s attempts to earn back credit after he slapped host Chris Rock in 2022 also had major wattage. Winning an Oscar later for King Richard, Smith said: “In this business, you’ve got to be able to have people disrespecting you, and you’ve got to smile and you’ve got to pretend like that’s OK.”
Another good route, if you have the comedy chops, is to have some fun. Witty Dianne Wiest, a best supporting actress for Hannah and Her Sisters, said: “Gee, this isn’t like I imagined it would be in the bathtub.” While Olivia Colman won laughs in 2019 for pointing starstruck at Lady Gaga, then poking her tongue out at the teleprompter urging her to wrap up.
The prize for the longest speech still goes to Greer Garson who won for Mrs Miniver in 1943. “I’m practically unprepared,” she began at 1am, then continued for seven minutes. Nowadays the ceremony’s infamous, swelling “get off the stage” music would have harried her away.
A final word must go to the weird ones: those speeches that have mystified or amused. Matthew McConaughey, accepting his award for Dallas Buyers Club in 2014, began by thanking God, then talked of chasing his “hero”, himself a decade on, while Italian Roberto Benigni declared, “I would like to be Jupiter and kidnap everybody and lie down in the firmament making love to everybody” in his 1999 speech.
Shanker, who sees herself as a secret weapon for nominees, advises clients to stay close to their public persona and to focus on enjoying the appreciation of their peers. It is not necessary, she insists, to thank everyone you ever met, which Julia Roberts, among others, did in 2001. “You may throw a few thanks out there,” she said, “and if you’re Bradley Cooper in Maestro, you’re going to want to thank the make-up artist.” But perhaps the crown for Oscars’ gratitude should go to Daniel Kaluuya, though, who in 2021 thanked many people, including his parents for originally having had sex – which clearly alarmed the middle-aged couple who were watching the show in front of a camera at home in London.
