Academy Awards Acceptance Speech Database

GRANT HESLOV:
I know what you're thinking: the three sexiest producers alive. I want to thank the Academy; this is truly an honor. There are literally thousands of people to thank, so thankfully I'm not gonna thank them now. I'm going to thank everybody personally in the next few weeks, but there are a couple of people I want to acknowledge. I want to acknowledge my partner in crime and my great friend, George Clooney, who... Everybody should be so lucky to have a partner who is as talented and as humorous and who has as much integrity. So, thank you, George. I want to thank my beautiful wife Lysa; you make everything better. And to our kids, Maya and Olivia, I love you guys. I hope your old man's not embarrassing you up here. The reason I wanted to speak first – I wanted to speak before Ben – was Ben is a producer on the film and he is also our director. And I thought it would be awkward for Ben to thank himself, but it's not awkward for me. So on behalf of George and myself, I want to thank you, Ben. You directed a hell of a film. Couldn't be more proud of the film; couldn't be more proud of Ben. So ladies and gentlemen, our co-producer and the director of "Argo": Ben Affleck.

BEN AFFLECK:
Thank you very much. Thank you very, very much. I know eventually that thing is gonna start to go, so forgive me if this is a little bit quick. I want to acknowledge Steven Spielberg, who I feel is a genius and a towering talent among us. I want to acknowledge the other eight films. There are eight great films that have every right, as much a right to be up here as we do. I want to acknowledge them and thank them for what they did, and for many of them who didn't even get nominated this year.

I want to thank, you know, I mean, Jack McNiece*, and Jerry Speck*, and Marty Brest, and my brother, and my mom and dad, and Patrick Whitesell, and Tony Mendez, who let us do his story. Thank you. And I'm gonna forget – I thank everyone in the movie, on the movie, worked on the movie, did anything with this movie, gets thanked. I want to thank Canada. I want to thank our friends in Iran living in terrible circumstances right now. I want to thank my wife – who I don't normally associate with Iran, but... I want to thank you for working on our marriage for ten Christmases. It's good. It is work but it's the best kind of work, and there's no one I'd rather work with.

And I just want to say, you know, I was here fifteen years ago or something, and, you know, I had no idea what I was doing. I stood out here in front of you all, really just a kid, and I went out, you know, and I never thought that I would be back here. And I am because of so many of you who are here tonight, because of this Academy, because of so many wonderful people who extended themselves to me when they had nothing to benefit from it in Hollywood. You know what I mean? I couldn't get 'em a job. I want to thank them and I want to thank what they taught me, which is that you have to work harder than you think you possibly can. You can't hold grudges. It's hard but you can't hold grudges. And it doesn't matter how you get knocked down in life, because that's gonna happen. All that matters is that you gotta get up. Violet, Sam and Sera, I love you; this is for you.

[*Spelling not confirmed.]