Special Speeches: Acceptance Speech

00:00 We've all seen great Academy Award acceptance speeches, and we've all seen awful ones.

00:04 The awful ones are remarkably consistent.

00:07 The person stands up there, usually fumbles, has a long list of.

00:11 I'd like to thank Brad. Brad, Brad.

00:13 And they're just listing things.

00:14 My accountant, my lawyer, my lawyer's accountant, my accountants lawyer.

00:18 My agent. It's perfunctory.

00:20 It's not from the heart, it's reading.

00:23 There's no emotion.

00:24 It's awful and it's boring.

00:27 Don't do that.

00:28 It doesn't matter if you never win an Academy Award, you might win an award for your local civic contributions to the scouting organization.

00:36 There may be a time when you do get to give a brief speech accepting an award, make the most of it.

00:44 The people who do really well with this speak from the heart.

00:48 Now, they may have planned it. They may have even memorized it, but they don't just give a long laundry list of names.

00:54 When they thank people, they look at them in the eyes.

00:57 Some movie stars will look at the director in the audience, thank them directly, thank fellow cast members.

01:04 When Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Academy Award, he gave a compelling story about when he was young, and it was just him and his mother.

01:12 She was the one there with him when it really counted and gave a gripping, emotional story about that.

01:20 Thanks, Mom.

01:21 It became emotional and it became sincere and genuine. So if you're going to thank people, be specific and what you're thanking them for, don't give a long laundry list.

01:34 And even if you're only speaking for 60 seconds, you can still put some humor, a story and some personality into it.

01:42 Do that, and it will be a great acceptance speech.