The awards season excitement is upon us. Execrably. Inexorably. The stuff dreams are made of rounded not with a sleep, but a great Hollywood circle jerk.
Don’t get me wrong, I love movies – dreaming them up, making them, watching them. Losing myself in them. They’re fun-houses I go to laugh, confessionals I go to cry, spaceships to go time-traveling in. Gimme a musty old theater, a new print of a classic film, a bucket of salty, slathered-in-butter popcorn – and I’m a very happy man.
“The Acceptance Speech” was inspired by an experience I had years ago when I was still waiting tables in NYC. A friend was making a film, his script was in trouble, he asked me to help. No pay, no credit, but he was my friend so, of course, I was happy to do it. And very proud when I saw a lot of my work up there in his finished film. When it was nominated for an Oscar and my friend was going to Hollywood, he made me promise to watch the show because, if by some miracle his film won, he was going to thank me on national TV.
So it got me thinking a lot about awards, acknowledgement, and why I do the work I do.
“The Acceptance Speech” is very much a valentine to Hollywood. It’s also about anyone who’s ever looked in their bathroom mirror and practiced their acceptance speech.
Enjoy.