00:00Please welcome, Holland Taylor!
00:17Hello.
00:20So,
00:24Sarah, the actress, is first of all
00:28a wild creature in the animal kingdom.
00:32Warm-blooded, instinctive, mysterious.
00:37She is alert, her nose to the breeze.
00:41She is fast, oh my god, super fast.
00:45Just try to catch her, as with a nasty little shove,
00:48she bolts ahead of you out of the car,
00:50across the street, and into the row.
00:53And Sarah is dangerous, trust me in this.
00:58Not dangerous like a snake, more like a mongoose.
01:03You know, those darling furry little creatures that kill snakes.
01:09And dangerous, dangerous like a squirrel.
01:12Have you ever looked straight into the eyes of a squirrel?
01:16Say, crouched on a shoulder height wall?
01:19A squirrel whose teeny baby your dog just killed?
01:25You know you are in serious danger.
01:28Don't look into those eyes, just be quiet and slowly back away.
01:32But you can't always know what might delight Sarah or make her mad.
01:39And there's the adventure you always wanted your life to be.
01:45Sarah is partly dangerous as a performer,
01:49because her commitment to truth is no less hot
01:53than the black-eyed fury of the squirrel.
01:55Nothing interferes with her laser perception of her character's traits,
02:06its habitat, vulnerabilities, its heroism, its ugliness,
02:12terrible truths, its comic pathos.
02:16She zeroes in to a story's central struggle,
02:20while most of us aren't even aware of our own.
02:23Sarah would make a coruscatingly brilliant psychoanalyst.
02:28I've actually never thought of this before,
02:31now, oddly, probably because I am so busy thinking
02:35what a great director she will make one day.
02:39She even thinks like an analyst even when we're attending plays,
02:43but then she's always operating on multiple levels at once,
02:47screaming with laughter, weeping at a character's tears,
02:50nodding at a wise line, and leaning over to hiss at me,
02:55when the door closes, it's going to be an act break, grab your stuff.
02:59Now, many actors choose to play people who are intrinsically attractive, pleasant, and good.
03:08Sarah would struggle to stay awake.
03:10Many actors often perform something.
03:15They enact, they show.
03:17They display, cobbling illusions with behavior deceptively not their own.
03:23In her acting, you could say Sarah is deceptive, but you would be wrong.
03:27Her acting is as honest as a vow of faith and as complicated as chemistry.
03:35She's not deceiving us.
03:37She is practicing magic, a hat trick in flesh and blood.
03:43She will fearlessly rush to play people who are discredited, pitied, despised,
03:48horrible, mean people, twisted, overlooked, misjudged.
03:55The result is she is their defender, their rescuer, their restitution.
04:02It turns out her secret skill as an actor is her own humanity.
04:09Most of you here know Sarah for years.
04:12You have a long history with her, as I have.
04:15I know the mongoose.
04:17I know the snake.
04:20We all know the warning signs.
04:22We all know the velocity of an upset-going nuclear.
04:27But mostly, we know the deeply understanding, loving, and loyal person who is safety itself.
04:35So part of the bargain that comes with loving Sarah is the proximity to that temperament she bears.
04:43I say bears because passion always, always costs something.
04:50It's not easy being green.
04:53I don't mean to say that people who are so full of feeling get some kind of pass.
04:58Not at all.
04:59They are often the artists who pay a dear private price for their art, for their expression, for their daring.
05:07It's a kind of alchemy they perform.
05:10And Sarah is a wizard who must drink a potent brew so that she may reveal the secrets of character and soul seemingly in the most ordinary moments.
05:22This is when you're coasting along, relishing her bravura performance of a difficult character, warts and all.
05:29And suddenly, in some way, you can't even pinpoint.
05:33The character is choking back tears.
05:36Her cheeks are flushed.
05:38Her body bent with woe.
05:40Wait, wait, we think.
05:42What's happening?
05:43Ah, yes.
05:44The Paulson effect.
05:47The character she's playing is not the cliché.
05:52Not the surface crappy person.
05:55But someone underneath.
05:57Complicated, exposed, and worthy.
06:01This is the sort of labor that earns one a quarter amongst the stars.
06:05But her place in heaven is truly signed and sealed by her many deep, long friendships and her love for her extended family.
06:16This part of her life takes time, much energy, thought, and doingness.
06:23Truth to tell, it is these relationships where Sarah is most complex, dedicated, and giving.
06:31Sometimes it's hard to believe she's an actress.
06:35She breaks the mold, throws assumptions out the window, does it her way.
06:42She will always surprise us.
06:45Hollywood does well to honor her.
06:49And just in case she doesn't know it, she has a permanent shining star on my street.
06:55I love you, darling.
06:57I love you, darling.
06:59Everybody.
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