From the toe-tapping opening to Birdman’s Best Picture win, this year’s Oscar ceremony was full of memorable moments, shocks, and silly surprises. But things were never more sincere or inspirational than when The Imitation Game screenwriter Graham Moore accepted the award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Watch his stirring speech below.
There have been many past Oscar winners who took the stage to deliver not only appreciative speeches, but also a message. (See also: Patricia Arquette and John Legend.) But Moore, whose life has been mostly out of the spotlight, took a more personal approach, coming clean about attempting suicide when he was 16 because he thought his “weirdness” was a fault, rather than something to embrace and showcase. And now that he has grown up and achieved a pinnacle of a Hollywood career, he’s passing on the knowledge that being weird is pretty great, and that everyone should stay that way.
The speech took social media by storm, with many people (both celebrity and non) championing Moore’s words and ideas. Like so…
Many probably assumed that Moore’s speech was largely centered on homosexuality, considering his script was about Alan Turing, a man whose hero status was blighted by his country’s heinous intolerance of his sexual preferences. But that isn’t the case, as Moore himself isn’t gay. Here’s how he explained things to Buzzfeed after his win.
I’m not gay, but I’ve never talked publicly about depression or any of that, and that was so much of what the movie was about, and it was one of the things that drew me to Alan Turing so much. I think we all feel like weirdos for different reasons. Alan had his share of them and I had my own, and that’s what always moved me so much about his story.
The Imitation Game received a lot of flak for largely sidestepping Turing’s homosexuality and how it led to his downfall, so it might not have ostensibly been the most appropriate movie for Moore to use to talk about acceptance and equality. But the impetus behind the message is less important than the message here. This was, after all, a telecast that featured the weird-and-loving-it Lady Gaga blowing the roof off with a Sound of Music performance. No one saw that coming.
Stay weird, Cinema Blend readers. We like you that way.
