Academy Award Winner Matthew McConaughey's Acceptance Speech for Best Actor 2014

Comedienne Ellen De Generes introduces actress Jennifer Lawrence who sweeps gracefully across the stage wearing a beautiful bright red strapless creation with a peplum waistband by Christian Dior, her blond hair swept away from her face, she brings with her a gold coloured envelope and announces the winner of the Best Actor Category.  “And the Oscar goes to....." she says as she fumbles around with the envelope, to release the name of the winning Oscar Nominee.  "......Matthew McConaughey.”

The auditorium erupts with thunderous applause as the television camera pans around and down to where Matthew is sitting next to his wife Camila, and Matthew looks up to the ceiling of the Dolby Theatre.  As he stands to his feet, the audience stand with him and he turns to Camila who looks stunning dressed in a full length gown of baby pink and places a gentle kiss on her lips.  He pulls away and moves along the line to where Jared Leto is standing and they hug one another, he turns and moves towards where Leonardo DiCaprio, another Oscar Nominee, is standing and hugs him too.

 

Matthew, who is wearing a white tuxedo jacket with a black waistcoat and black trousers then turns back towards the stage and runs up the stairs to where Jennifer Lawrence is waiting and gives her a massive hug as she hands over the Academy Award, he then makes his way to the podium with a huge grin on his face and he begins his acceptance speech.

"A-ha.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, to the Academy for this, all six thousand members!  Thank you to the other nominees, all of these performances were impeccable in my opinion I didn’t see a false note anywhere.  I wanna thank Jean-Marc Vallee our director, I wanna thank Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner who I worked with daily.  Umm.  There’s a few things, about three things to my account that I need each day.  Umm, one of them is something to look up to and another one is something to look forward to and another is someone to chase."  

Now first off I wanna thank God, because that’s who I look up to, he has graced my life with opportunities that I know are not of my hand or any other human hand. Umm, he has shown me that, err it’s a scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates.  Umm, in the words of the late Charlie Lawton, who said "When you got God you gotta friend and that friend, is you."  Umm.

To my family that’s who and what I look forward to, to my Father who I know is up there right now with a big pot of Gumbo, he’s got a lemon meringue pie over there, he’s probably in his underwear and he’s got a cold can of Miller Lite and he’s dancing right now. To you Dad, you taught me what it means to be a man.

To my Mother who’s here tonight, who taught me and my two older brothers, demanded that we respect ourselves, and what we in turn learned was then we were better able to respect others.  Thank you for that Mama.

To my wife Camila and my kids, Levi, Vida and Mr. Stone. The encouraging significance you give me everyday I go out the door is unparalleled, you are the four people in my life that I wanna make the most proud of me. Thank you.

And to, umm, my hero, that’s who I chase.  Now when I was fifteen years old I had a very important person in my life come to me and say "Who’s your Hero?" 

And I said "I’m not even gonna think about that, give me a couple of weeks." I came back two weeks later, this person comes up and says "Who’s your Hero?" 

I said "I thought about it I said you know who it is? It’s me in ten years."  

So I turned twenty five, ten years later that same person comes to me and goes "So are you a Hero?", and I was like "Not even close! No no no".

She said "Why?" 

I said "Because my Hero’s me at 35".  

So you see every day, every week, every month and every year of my life my Hero is always ten years away, I’m never gonna be my Hero, I’m not gonna tame that I know I’m not, and that’s just fine with me cos that keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing.  

So to any of us whatever those things are, whatever it is we look up to, whatever it is we look forward to and whoever it is we are chasing to that I say amen, to that I say Alright, alright, alright.  To that I say Just Keep Living - thank you." 

Matthew waves to the audience and is enveloped with rapturous applause as he turns around and escorts Jennifer Lawrence from the stage.