Oscar Speech and Backstage Interview: Ben Affleck for Best Picture (video)

Ben Affleck, Best Picture winner for Argo

This speech by Affleck was by far the best of the night for me. “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 going to happen. All that matters is you gotta get up.” Love that and love him.

Oscar speech: “I want to acknowledge Steven Spielberg, who I feel is a genius and a towering talent among us. I want to acknowledge the other 8 films, there are 8 great films, who have as much a right to be up here as we do. I want to acknowledge them for what they did and thank them and many of them who didn’t even get nominated this year. I want to thank Jack McNiece, Jerry Speck, Marty Brest and my brother and my mom and dad and Patrick Whitesell and Tony Mendez, who let us do his story. Thank you. I thank you 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 usually associate with Iran. I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It’s good. It is work but it’s the best kind of work and there’s no one I’d rather work. And I’d just like to say, I was here 15 years ago or something and I had no idea what I was doing. I stood out here in front of you all and really just a kid. I went out and I never thought 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 them 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 going to happen. All that matters is you gotta get up. Violet, Sam and Sera, this is for you.”
Here is the backstage interview with Affleck, George Clooney and Grant Heslov.