Glenn Close Delivered an Incredible Speech at the 2019 Golden Globes
Somehow, A Star Is Born didn’t sweep the entire Golden Globes, despite being poised to do so. Part of that was because of Glenn Close, who took home the award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama on her 14th Golden Globe nomination. Lady Gaga‘s fans can’t be too upset though — in fairness, even Close didn’t think she would win.
Her face of sheer shock confirmed that when her name was announced, as did her speech, which was perhaps the best one of the evening. “Thank you so much Hollywood Foreign Press,” she said, before addressing Gaga and the other actresses she was up against. “This is such a great honor. And I’m so honored to be with my category sisters and we’ve got to know each other a little but so far and I can’t wait to spend more time with you. What you’re here for is — we all should be up here together. That’s all I can say.”
Close then went on to talk (and joke) about the sexism in Hollywood that stalled her winning film The Wife for over a decade. “Oh my god, I just don’t believe it,” she said of her win, adding, “It took 14 years to make this film… It was called The Wife. I think that’s why it took 14 years to get made.”
For Close the project was a personal one. “To play a character is so internal, I’m thinking [of] my mom, who really sublimated herself to my father her whole life and in her ’80s she said to me, ‘I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything.’ It was so not right,” she said. “I feel what I’ve learned through this whole experience is that women, we’re nurturers. That’s what expected of us. We have our children. We have our husbands — if we’re lucky enough — and our partners, whoever. But we have to find personal fulfillment. We have to follow our dreams. We have to say, ‘I can do that and I should be allowed to do that’. When I was little, I felt like Muhammad Ali, who was destined to be a boxer, to be destined to be an actress. I saw early Disney films and I said, ‘I can do that’ and here I am today. It will have been 45 years in September that I am a working actress.”
Amazingly, even after 45 years in the business, three Tonys, three Emmys, and three previous Golden Globes for her television work, this is Close’s first major award for her film work. Somewhat famously, her six Oscar nominations make her the living actor or actress with the most nominations without a win.
One thing that wasn’t surprising about this? The standing ovation that followed.
