00:00Leonardo Silva Reviewer
00:18Thank you, thank you, John.
00:22FX changed my life,
00:24and it brought me into an art form
00:29that is changing our world.
00:31It continues to change our world.
00:34But it was an amazing experience,
00:37a life-changing experience,
00:39and Mr. Chiklis is right here.
00:41There he is, right there.
00:43My partner in crime.
00:48Okay, so...
00:51And thank you, my dear Zelie.
00:54Yeah, I loved your dad long before you were around.
01:00And here's Pip.
01:02You can...
01:03Yeah, sit, stay.
01:04Okay.
01:06Yeah, he's my bodyguard, actually.
01:10But, Zelie, thank you so much.
01:12I mean, coming from your generation,
01:14you know, those thoughts mean the world to me.
01:17And I adored your father.
01:20Um...
01:21My mom...
01:22My mom said there's nothing more boring
01:26than actors talking about themselves.
01:31So I feel...
01:32I think kind of she was right.
01:35But, um...
01:36So, hi, Mom.
01:38I hope you'll indulge me.
01:44Uh...
01:45So here we're surrounded by the hands and feet of icons.
01:51Icon.
01:52It's a word that's easy to throw about until it loses its meaning.
01:58All glittery and beyond the reach of mere mortals.
02:01But who were and are the people who planted their hands and feet here before today?
02:11One of them is sitting right there.
02:13Melissa McCarthy.
02:20To me, they were and are human beings who had stories.
02:28They all had stories of overcoming, of persistence.
02:33Frequently against the odds.
02:36Who had to balance their public personas against who they really were.
02:40People with a dream, of course.
02:44But people with a crazy, unquenchable belief.
02:48The crazy engine of belief.
02:51That they had something unique to give to the world.
02:56To help us understand what it means to be a human.
02:59A human being on this little O, the Earth.
03:05To be considered worthy of their company is the honor of my life.
03:21So, we can't do it alone.
03:24Artists.
03:25Those with creative souls.
03:27The John Landgraffs of life.
03:30Who is a, I call us, aliens.
03:34We are members of the alien nation.
03:37Because I think we have more antennae than maybe some other humans.
03:43And there are aliens and civilians.
03:45And we definitely speak different languages.
03:47I fear a world where the civilians completely disenfranchise us aliens.
03:57We aliens thrive and live on creative collaboration.
04:02It is our sustenance.
04:05And then there is what I call creative friction.
04:08The act of removing your ego in the fight for the best results.
04:15Then, there's the world according to Rory, my grandson.
04:21Which is, uh oh.
04:25Or, oh wow.
04:33I want to talk about a few of my mentors.
04:37My first mentor was a man called Howard Scammon.
04:40Who is the chairman of the theater department of the college of William and Mary.
04:44I went there as a 22 year old freshman.
04:49It's a long story.
04:52But I walked straight into the theater department.
04:55And I auditioned for the first show, which was Twelfth Night.
04:58I was sitting in my bio lab.
05:00And Dr. Scammon came in in his Bermuda shorts and flip flops.
05:05To remind me that I had a call back.
05:06And he cast me as Olivia in Twelfth Night as my first year as a freshman.
05:13He understood my hunger and my desire to be an actress.
05:17But I also had a hunger and desire to learn other things.
05:21And that's why I went to a great liberal arts school.
05:27But, but Dr. Scammon, I, he would, he would stand in the wings.
05:33And he would say, just do it.
05:38And I keep thinking maybe somebody from Nike happened to have a child at William and Mary.
05:45He also said to me once in my senior year when I was known kind of around the town for
05:51things I'd done in theater.
05:52He, he said to me one day, just remember, you're a big fish in a very little pond.
06:02So when I went to New York, I was very aware that I was a little fish in a very
06:09big pond.
06:10But the thing about Dr. Scammon was he came as, as long as he was physically able to every single
06:18show I did as, to support me.
06:22And then he would send me incredible notes.
06:27Mary Beth Hurt.
06:28Mary Beth Hurt.
06:32My beloved best friend of 52 years who died of dementia just last month.
06:43I understudied her on my first job.
06:47She was brilliant. I was so happy I never had to go on for her.
06:51But I remember I would sit in the back row, green with envy, wanting to be up on stage, learning
06:59the lines when everyone else was learning them.
07:02But I remember Mary Beth and that director was Harold Prince, one of the great, great directors ever in American
07:09theater and American musical theater.
07:11So Hal gave Mary Beth a direction.
07:16And she sat there on stage, she said, no, I don't think I'm going to do that.
07:23And everybody's assholes just slam shut.
07:31And Hal very calmly said, all right, Mary Beth, what would you like to do?
07:37And she went on to show him what she wanted to do.
07:42She got a tremendous laugh from all the crew and the rest of the cast that were in the theater.
07:49And Hal simply said, all right, Mary Beth, you do that.
07:53And the thing that that taught me was if you don't think something is right, don't just say, I don't
08:02think this is right.
08:03Think of an alternative, think of three alternatives and give your director the choice.
08:11That's my darling, dearest Mary Beth.
08:15I mean, I would so many times through all these, I've been an actress now going on 53 years.
08:22But so many times I've said when I was stuck in a scene, I say, what would Mary Beth do?
08:33And then it would come.
08:37George Roy Hill and Marion Dowdy.
08:39George Roy Hill put me in my first film, The World According to Garp, 46 years ago.
08:44Marion Dowdy was the first really kind of, I mean, casting director.
08:49Casting directors didn't really exist before Marion.
08:51Marion kind of invented the role.
08:53She told me that she knew what George wanted better than he did.
08:58So I was glad that she was in the audience with him when they came to see Barnum on Broadway.
09:03And from there, he put me into Garp.
09:05I remember going up to George the first day of shooting and saying,
09:09I've heard that it can be really hard for an actor to transition from theater to film.
09:17And George looked at me and said, uh-huh.
09:25But then he went on to direct me to actually show, you know, tell me certain mannerisms I had that
09:31I still have and I'm still aware of.
09:32And I watched him with Robin Williams who had done, he had done, he had come off of Mork and
09:39he had only done Popeye.
09:41So he was still, you know, the, and I watched George.
09:44Um, it was amazing work with Robin with, with such love and such, um, purpose to make him into a
09:55movie star.
09:56Um, Robert Redford.
10:06So I did the natural with him and I remember, um, first of all, I got to kiss him.
10:14But I also had to throw him out of my apartment.
10:18And I was really pissed off about that.
10:21But, um, I remember standing on a set, you know, uh, near him and we, and he told me about
10:28his three passions in life.
10:30The culture of Native Americans, uh, conservation of our natural resources, and Sundance Institute.
10:39And he invited me to be on the board of Sundance Institute, which I was on for 16 years, to
10:45help new voices emerge from around the world.
10:51And Franklin Ladd's mom was the beginning of that as well.
10:56Michelle.
10:58Yay!
10:59Um, and when, you know, the thing about, yes, I think John was right when I've always, it's the writing
11:08that counts.
11:09You go where the writing is.
11:11Um, and early, early on, I, I had done Garp and I got, I got offered something in television called
11:18Something About Amelia.
11:19And it was about incest.
11:21I couldn't even say the word.
11:24But I read the script and it was brilliant.
11:27So I said, I've got to do this.
11:28And a lot of people said, you're going to ruin your movie career.
11:31And I said, but the English do it.
11:35Judy Dench, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, they all do it.
11:40So why don't we?
11:42That's, they, you know, so it's been, how, how good is the writing and the English do it?
11:49And I want to say from the bottom of my heart, how much it means to me to have all
11:53these people here witnessing and my beautiful Rory.
12:00Everyone, CAA, the giants of CAA, who have been with me for how many years, over 25, 20, yeah, 30,
12:1030 years.
12:12Francis Lawrence, who I just worked on Hunger Games with.
12:17What a magnificent, I, I could not get over you, Francis, because you had armies.
12:24You had 40 horses and chariots and I don't know how many actors.
12:29My first day on set, there were a thousand people there.
12:32And Francis was always calm and gracious and phenomenal.
12:39And that was a wonderful, wonderful experience.
12:44Nina Jacobson, who I first met doing 102 Dalmatians, who is a magnificent producer and who is also now doing
12:57all this fair.
12:59Bonnie, Curtis, Julie, Lynn, who we, some of the great producers, creative producers in the business.
13:06We did Albert Knobs together, which was a great, great, great experience.
13:11And Michael and Michelle, everyone here.
13:15Connor Hines, who went to college with Annie, their best friends.
13:19And Colin, Connor just wrote the love story, the JFK, JFK Jr., bravo, bravo, bravo.
13:30And my, my darling Christian, who has made such a difference in my life.
13:35And my creative people, my, my Curtis, Curtis, who is a wig genius.
13:45Um, wigs matter.
13:47Uh, it's all about hair.
13:48It is, isn't it?
13:50It's all about hair.
13:51Um, anyway, every single one of you, if I haven't picked, picked you out, I, I am absolutely, childhood, what?
13:58What, um, nursery school friend of Annie's?
14:02Alida?
14:04Anyway, I don't want to say any more time.
14:07I, I'm, I'm thrilled to be here.
14:09I'm thrilled that you're all here sharing this moment with me.
14:12Thank you so much.
Comments