Host of the Academy Awards, Billy Crystal, joked that Meryl Streep has been nominated 17 times for an award, and won twice, which meant that 14 times she had to pretend that she was elated someone else had won. The last time she had won was in 1982 for her role in “Sophie’s Choice.”
On Sunday night, however, Streep, 62, won an Oscar for Best Actress for her role as Margaret Thatcher in “Iron Lady.”
She took the stage with a mix of confidence and astonishment and through her speech that her award may have ticked off America.
“When they called my name,” she chuckled, “I had this feeling I could hear half of America going, ‘Oh no! Oh come on, why her? Again?!
“But…whatever,” she finished before continuing to thank her loved ones.
She first thanked her husband Don because “when you thank your husband at the end of the speech, they play him out with the music.” Streep also thanked her makeup artist J. Roy Helland, who she refers to as her partner, for his 37 years of loyalty for working with the award-winning Best Actress through each of her films.
Streep looked into the audience and thanked her old friends and new friends for “this inexplicably wonderful career.”
Steep explained to reporters in the press room how shocked she was to have won.
“I thought I was so old and jaded, but they call your name and you just go into a sort of white light,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “It was like (being) a kid again. I was a kid when I won this, like, 30 years ago.”
“Two of the nominees were not even conceived,” she joked, talking about fellow nominees for Best Actress, Rooney Mara, 26, and Michelle Williams, 30.
“Frankly, I understand Streep fatigue,” she laughed. Streep has had a constant presence at major awards shows, “And it shocked me that it didn’t override this tonight.”
Check out the video to see Meryl Streep’s acceptance speech for Best Actress.
