00:03Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses,
00:08Distinguished Members of the Princess of Asturias Award Foundation,
00:15My esteemed colleagues,
00:19Ladies and gentlemen,
00:21Amigos,
00:24I am so honored to be here this evening,
00:28to be included among these
00:32accomplished, generous talents
00:36in this beautiful hall,
00:39which I feel if we listen,
00:44we can hear the echoes of the voices
00:47of many of our heroes of the 20th
00:49and this very young century.
00:53It's hard for me to imagine that I am here,
00:57because I think sometimes that I have
01:01pretended to be extraordinary women all my life,
01:04that sometimes I'm mistaken for one,
01:07but I am truly, truly grateful
01:11for this recognition of the art of acting,
01:15which is the work of my life
01:18and the essence of which remains very mysterious
01:21even to me.
01:25What is it that actors do, really?
01:30The actor's shape-shifting,
01:34this substance-less gift
01:37is what makes it hard to assess and measure.
01:42What is its worth to us,
01:44its value?
01:46I know for me,
01:48when I see a performance that speaks to me,
01:52particularly,
01:53I keep it in my heart for days
01:56or even decades.
02:00You know,
02:01when I feel that other person's pain
02:03or their joy
02:05or I laugh at their foolishness,
02:09I feel as if I've discovered something true
02:12and I feel more alive
02:15and I feel connected,
02:17but connected to what?
02:21To people,
02:23other people.
02:26To have the experience
02:28of being someone else.
02:31So what is this magic connection?
02:36We know that empathy
02:38is the heart of the actor's gift.
02:41It's the current
02:42that connects me
02:45and my actual pulse
02:48to a fictional character.
02:50And I can make her heart race
02:54or I can quiet it
02:56as a scene requires
02:57and my nervous system,
02:59sympathetically wired to hers,
03:02carries that courage
03:04current out to you
03:05and to the woman sitting next to you
03:08and to her friend
03:09and in the live theater,
03:12we can all feel
03:14as if we're feeling it together.
03:18And it is easier
03:19to be emotionally connected
03:22to people who are like us.
03:25You know, it's...
03:28But I've always been interested
03:31and pulled to understand
03:33that other counterintuitive instinct
03:36that we have
03:37to understand strangers,
03:42people that are not like us,
03:44the imaginative ability we have
03:46to follow the stories
03:47of people outside our tribe
03:50as if they were our own.
03:54In my own work,
03:55I've been criticized, you know,
03:57for going too far afield
03:59from my own lived experience,
04:03from veering too far away
04:05from my own truth
04:06or my identity,
04:08all the accents, you know,
04:10the nationalities,
04:11and I played a man once.
04:15But is it just a stunt
04:18to want to wrap my arms
04:20around the world,
04:21to want to wander
04:21and wonder
04:24and try to see
04:25through the...
04:27so many different colored eyes
04:28and experiences.
04:32I'm just a nice middle-class girl
04:35from New Jersey.
04:37So who am I
04:38to presume to wear
04:39the shoes
04:40of the first
04:42female prime minister
04:44of the UK
04:44or to imagine
04:47being a Polish holocaust survivor
04:49or an Italian housewife
04:51or a rabbi
04:52or the arbiter
04:55or the final arbiter
04:57of the fashion world
04:59because that's not
05:01my area of expertise,
05:03honestly.
05:05A great Spanish artist,
05:08Pablo Picasso,
05:10said,
05:10to imitate others
05:11is necessary.
05:12To imitate oneself
05:13is pathetic.
05:16And another great Spanish artist,
05:19Penelope Cruz,
05:21said,
05:21you cannot live your life
05:23looking at yourself
05:24from someone else's
05:25point of view.
05:28That's my bad
05:29Penelope imitation.
05:31So I persevere
05:35in spite of the critics
05:36because I think
05:37it is an actor's job
05:38to trespass,
05:40to appropriate
05:42another's life,
05:44to embody lives
05:45that are not like ours.
05:47The most important part
05:49of our job
05:49is to make
05:50each life accessible
05:52and felt
05:53to an audience,
05:54whether that audience
05:55is in a small theater
05:58in Malaga
05:59or whether they're watching
06:01via streaming media
06:03from all around the globe.
06:07One rule
06:08that actors
06:09are taught
06:10in drama school
06:11is that you must
06:12never judge
06:13your character,
06:14the character
06:15you're playing.
06:16Judging
06:16makes you sit
06:17outside
06:18her experience.
06:19And the bargain
06:21you make
06:21when you
06:24climb into her shoes
06:25is to try
06:26to see the world
06:27through her eyes.
06:29Let the audience judge.
06:31You make your own
06:32best case
06:33on her behalf.
06:36We are all born
06:38with fellow feeling,
06:41empathy,
06:43a porous,
06:44shared humanity.
06:46Babies will cry
06:47just on seeing
06:48the tears
06:49of another.
06:50But as we grow up,
06:52we set about
06:53to tamp down
06:54those feelings,
06:55to suppress them
06:56and to supplant them
07:00in favor of
07:01self-preservation
07:02or ideology
07:03and we mistrust
07:05and we suspect
07:06the motives
07:07of other people
07:08that are not like us.
07:11And so we arrive
07:13at this unhappy moment
07:16in history.
07:19When I was in college,
07:21I designed the costumes
07:23for Lorca's
07:24great timeless play,
07:27The House of Bernarda Alba.
07:30And in it,
07:31one of the sisters,
07:32Martirio says,
07:35history repeats itself.
07:37I can see that everything
07:39is a terrible repetition.
07:43And Lorca wrote
07:44this impassioned play
07:45two months
07:46before his own murder
07:47on the eve
07:49of another cataclysm
07:50that he could see
07:52from so high above
07:56that he had such a distance
07:58on events so close
08:00to his own throat
08:01is extraordinary
08:04that he could express
08:05through Martirio
08:07a wisdom
08:08that could not save him
08:09but serves as a warning
08:12to us
08:13is a gift
08:14to the world.
08:17To act in such a play
08:20is to give a voice
08:23to the dead
08:24that the living can hear.
08:28It's an actor's privilege.
08:32The gift of empathy
08:33is something
08:34we do all share.
08:36This mysterious ability
08:38to sit
08:39in a darkened theater
08:41of strangers
08:41next to each other
08:43and to feel
08:44the feelings
08:45of people
08:45that don't look like us
08:48don't sound like us.
08:50It's one that we could
08:52all do well
08:52to take outside
08:53into the daylight.
08:55Empathy.
08:57Empathy may be
08:58a radical form
08:59of outreach
09:01and diplomacy
09:02in other theaters
09:03of endeavor
09:04in our world
09:05in our increasingly
09:07hostile
09:07and volatile world.
09:10I hope we take
09:12to heart
09:13another lesson
09:14that every actor
09:15is taught
09:16and that is
09:18it's
09:19it's all about
09:20listening.
09:25Thank you for listening.
09:26Thank you.
09:30And thank you
09:31for this great honor.
09:32Thank you.
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