Zoe Saldaña wins Best Supporting Actress at London Film Critics Circle, gives emotional speech

Transcript:

“I didn’t have anything prepared, you guys. I wasn’t expecting this, especially now. I’m grateful to you. Thank you to the London Film Critics Circle for this recognition. I’m just so grateful to just be working after 25-something, 20-something years. Which, I still- I look at our millennial and our gen z and I think “we’re the same age,” but we’re not. I appreciate this recognition. I appreciate to be in this group of people.

It is hard. It is very challenging to believe in something with so much conviction that you are willing to go against the grain, and sometimes the grain can betray you. The grain can tell you that it is the right path if you believe in your heart and you do it. I feel that the path of an artist is to believe in what you’re feeling if it’s coming from a place of love and purity and knowledge and education and research and hard work. Emilia was done with so much of all of those things.

On that note, I want to thank Jacques Audiard for never allowing language to limit his curiosity, for understanding human behavior, whether that’s in Sri Lanka, that lives in an Arabic, Islamic world, or it lives in the world of Emilia Pérez. And I want to thank the cast. When we all came together, we came with all of our luggage, all of our baggage, and we put it on the table, and we just made a lot with what we had, and something really beautiful came of it, and you saw it. So, I want to thank you for seeing it. Thank you so much.

If there’s one thing I want to leave you with, please be abstract with your idea of redemption. Keep your minds and your hearts open, always, and keep making art and telling your truth. Please. Thank you so much.”