|
Quotes
After six hours of being blind, you lose the
sense of how a person is physically. It was amazing to hear the little
buzzing voices all around you. - On wearing prosthetic eyelids which
made him blind in _Ray (2004)
Give it up for Ray
Charles and his beautiful legacy. And thank you, Ray Charles for living.
In
our music, in our everyday life, there are so many negative things. Why
not have something positive and stamp it with blackness?
She
still talks to me now, only now she talks to me in my dreams. And I
can't wait to go to sleep tonight because we have a lot to talk about. I
love you.
[2005 Academy Awards acceptance speech for
Best Actor in a Leading Role] I guess we got to do it again. "Oh,
Ah!" Yeah, you're ready. That's for Ray Charles. Give it up for Ray
Charles and his beautiful legacy. And thank you, Ray Charles, for
living.
I got so many people to thank tonight. First
I want to start it out with Taylor Hackford. Taylor, you took a chance,
man. I mean that love for Ray Charles was deep, down in the earth. It's
cracked open. And it's spilling. And everybody's drowning in this
love.
I thank you for taking a chance on this
film. And thank you for waiting 15 years to get me to do it. I want to
thank you. I want to thank Crusader. I want to thank my agents. I want
to thank Rick Kurtzman. I want to thank Kim Hodges. I want to thank
Steve Smooke.
I want to thank my managers, Jaime King and
Marcus King. Let's live this African American dream. It's beautiful. I'm
glad I'm with you. I ain't never leaving you. I'm glad I'm with you. I
got a chance to meet a whole lot of people, experiencing this. And other
people I want to thank, I want to thank my sister. Four feet, eleven
inches of nothing but pure love.
I want to thank my daughter for telling me
just before I got up here, "If you don't win dad, you're still
good." I'm just ... I see Oprah and I see Halle. I just want to say
your names. I want to talk to you later. Both of you. Because Oprah got
-- allowed me to meet somebody by the name of Sidney Poitier. And, yes,
Sidney Poitier said, "I saw you once. And I looked in your eyes and
there was a connection." And he says, "I give to you
responsibility." So, I'm taking that responsibility tonight. And,
thank you, Sidney.
This is probably going to be the toughest
part of this speech. My daughter shares my grandmother's name,
"Marie." My grandmother's name is Estelle Marie Talley. She's
not here tonight. And this is going to be the toughest part. But she was
my first acting teacher. She told me to stand up straight. Put your
shoulders back. Act like you got some sense.
We would go places. And I would wild out.
And she would say, "Act like you've been somewhere." And then
when I would act the fool, she would beat me. She would whup me. And she
could get an Oscar for the way she whupped me because she was great at
it. And after she whipped me, she would talk to me and tell me why she
whipped me. She said I want you to be a southern gentleman. She still
talks to me now. Only now, she talks to me, in my dreams. And I can't
wait to go to sleep tonight because we got a lot to talk about. I love
you.
You know what? I never really factor
Hollywood into anything. I'm a black actor, so I can't really control
what Hollywood thinks. I gotta go do my thing, and my jokes have got to
be funny. Whatever I do has got to be great.
CCH Pounder taught me one thing. She said,
`Characters are like putting on a coat. You put the coat on while you
work, you take the coat off after it's over.' You need that freshness. I
know people who stay in character, and it's the worst thing in the
world. You can't go out. They're still in their character and the
character residue is too much. I like to go do it, flip it on like a
light switch and then flip it off. Then, when we come back in the next
morning I flip it back on. That's what keeps things fresh for me.
|
