Academy Award Quotes & Sayings

I' ve won awards. And they didn't make me feel bad winning them. They made me feel pretty good. But it also did not make me feel bad NOT winning the Academy Award. — Al Pacino

Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award. I'm going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig. — Aaron Sorkin

The (Academy Award) ceremonies are a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons. — George C. Scott

Emotions are reserved for juries and, in that case, a good lawyer can really lay them on when the time is right, better than the best Academy Award winning actor — Kenneth Eade

White people are very good at acting like they're not racist. They deserve an Academy Award for that. — Paul Mooney

On Friday evening Martin and Mona went to the United Artists Theatre to see a film already being mentioned for the Academy award. It had three stars, ran a hundred and ten minutes, and bored them both to petrifaction. (In brief, the award was in the bag.)
The Case of the Seven of Calvary — Anthony Boucher

I'd rather win a pennant than an Academy Award. — Laraine Day

I think I learned a lot on Beaches. A guy I worked with Dante Spinotti is a wonderful cinematographer and it was his first picture and he went on to be nominated for an Academy Award for "LA Confidential" which was great. — Garry Marshall

I never make a movie for awards consideration. I will use the hope of getting an Academy Award a) to honor the people who work so hard and also b) it's the greatest Good Housekeeping seal in the world. It's the greatest brand. It's as good as Louis Vuitton and Dior in the world of moviemaking. It's the Super Bowl. — Harvey Weinstein

I won an Academy Award for 'The Cider House Rules,' playing an American. — Michael Caine

Professionally speaking, the proudest moment was when I booked the 'Human Stain.' I knew it had Nicole Kidman, Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris and Gary Sinise on board, and the director Robert Benton was an academy award winner for 'Kramer vs Kramer.' — Wentworth Miller

I can see my ghost trying to get that Academy Award, forever stuck in a casting office. Can you imagine? I've spent enough time in audition rooms. I don't want to be doing that in my afterlife. — Rachael Taylor

It would be the ultimate dream for me to win an Academy Award, be in love and have kids. Then I would say, 'Life is great! I have done everything I wanted.' — Tara Reid

I remember talking with a friend. He asked me a question. He said, 'What's your end game? What's your goal with this?' And I said to him, 'You know, I want to win the Academy Award one day.' And he said, 'OK'. — Ki Hong Lee

I'm awkward at these things. Just being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Karate Kid was a real surprise and I was a little uncomfortable. — Pat Morita

The Oscar sits on some shelf above my desk. If there was an earthquake, I could actually be killed by my own Academy Award. — Helen Hunt

The whole awards thing is great. Why? Because the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, they put a focus on the industry, and that focus translates into people buying tickets to see movies or download films, legitimately download them. And it keeps us all at work. So I'm a big fan of award shows. — Liam Neeson

Stars are rare creatures, and not everyone can be one. But there isn't anyone on earth - not you, not me, not the girl next door - who wouldn't like to be a movie star holding up that gold statuette on Academy Award night. — Sue Mengers

A true friend will be there to congratulate you when you win an Academy Award and will also be there to hold your hair back when you're puking your guts out in the bathroom stall two minutes later! So keep your eyes peeled for the hair-holding kind. — Jordan Christy

I wanted to be an actor my whole young life. My dad was an actor, obviously - he won an Academy Award, but I had no idea what was involved. I had all the wrong ideas about acting. — Ed Begley Jr.

It's interesting, winning an Academy Award as a young man ... life-changing, but I'm just me within that. It's been very helpful for my career, but I'm trying to stay on the path I was on before. — Adrien Brody

I'll be honest with you: I'd rather have BAFTA over an Academy Award any day. Because it's just cool. — Rene Russo

People see so many movies that when they finally see one not so bad as the others, they think it's great. an Academy Award means that you don't stink quite as much as your cousin. — Charles Bukowski

My dream was to win an Academy Award. But my other dream was to win the Super Bowl, and there's a chance that might not happen, either. — Brian Dunkleman

An Academy Award nomination is stuff dreams are made of. — Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

Pass me the Academy Award. I don't know how I did it, but hysterical-girl tears sprung from my eyes as I ran out of the room and down the grand staircase. — Kim Harrington

To make money, it may be important to win the Academy Award, for it might mean another ten million dollars at the box office. — Don Simpson

Before 'Titanic,' yes, I had done some things and, yes, I had been nominated for an Academy Award, but I had never been sort of world-famous. And I suppose, yes, I am really famous now. But I feel embarrassed to say that because it's just a bit daft for me. — Kate Winslet

Because they've either conveniently forgotten with time or they're trying to be supportive, most mothers won't tell you how hard pregnancy (and then childbirth) can be. Let me tell you, it is. It's brutal sometimes! But, if I did it, ANYONE can do it. I mean, I always knew I was meant to do something really BIG in life, and now I know that this was it. Screw winning an Academy Award someday ... I GAVE BIRTH — Jenny McCarthy

The people voting for the Oscars are so old. I haven't seen one Academy Award voter with a tampon in her purse. — Joan Rivers

You ain't ever gonna get an Academy Award for doing 'Crank,' and you certainly won't for doing all the other movies I've done. — Jason Statham

My son was staying with me, and we got up to watch it, just before they announced supporting actress, he came up and put his arm around me. I think it was like, 'Either way, mom, I still love you.' But then it was funny because I saw it. I saw my picture, and I heard them announce it, but I had to ask him, 'Did I really see that?' I wasn't sure I was seeing it, but he assured me that yes, I was nominated for the Academy Award. We just sort of cried a little bit. — June Squibb

A new kind of award has been added
the deathbed award. It is not an award of any kind. Either the recipient has not acted at all, or was not nominated, or did not win the award the last few times around. It is intended to relieve the guilty conscience of the Academy members and save face in front of the public. The Academy has the horrible taste to have a star, choking with emotion, present this deathbed award so that there can be no doubt in anybody's mind why the award is so hurriedly given. Lucky is the actor who is too sick to watch the proceedings on television. — Marlene Dietrich

I'm an Academy Award winner. I'm serious. — Charlize Theron

Well, it was the beginning of my film career. It was amazing to me that I got nominated for an Academy Award. — Sally Kellerman

What does the Academy Award mean? I don't think it means much of anything. — Sally Field

I got nominated for an Academy Award(R) for writing 'Borat.' — Todd Phillips

Do not tell somebody how to vote, just go up to them and tell them what Fahrenheit 9/11 meant to you. Fahrenheit will probably not win an Academy Award, but if you put it first on your list, it will become a nominee. — Valerie Harper

I hadn't even dreamed of getting another Academy Award, and there I was unhappy in my private life and miserable, i remember Clifford Odets drove me three times around the Biltmore, where the Oscars were given out, because I was so full of tears. — Anna Held

I'm used to seeing it, but it's weird having an Academy Award. You usually only see one of them on the TV show when they give them out, so it's kind of surreal to have one in your house. — Steven Wright

I remember when I first won the Academy Award and how much I loved it. I just wish there was an award around that you could really believe in again. — Joanne Woodward

For a lot of filmmakers, their first goal is to be successful and make some money. But once people start doing that, the real goal is then to win an Academy Award. Because when they do, they know that their obit is going to start out, 'Academy Award winner so-and-so.' — Robert Osborne

'Groundhog Day' was one of the greatest scripts ever written. It didn't even get nominated for an Academy Award. — Bill Murray

I am still the same person doing the same science. Why are people so impressed when some academy in Sweden gives an award? — Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

At the Academy Award Dinners all the actors and actresses in Hollywood gather around to see what someone else thinks about their acting besides their press agents. — Bob Hope

It is true I'd rather get a hole in one than win an Academy Award. — Malcolm McDowell

It's much harder to act in a bad film than in a good one. A terrible script makes for very difficult acting. You can win an Academy Award for some of the easiest acting in your career, made possible by a brilliant script. — Michael Caine

A lot of people are going around saying, 'You won the Academy Award for such and such.' 'No. I didn't.' 'You didn't?' 'Well, you should have.'. — Morgan Freeman

I get cassettes near Academy Award time of every movie that's made that thinks it has some kind of chance for a nomination - that's when I watch my movies. — William Peter Blatty

I'm thinking, this is Robert Redford. You know, he's won an Academy Award, he's talking to me about directing a movie he's in. So you just think that it's Hollywood stuff or whatever. — Barry Levinson

I don't really look forward to movie stardom or doing a $200-million movie or winning an Academy Award. — Rachael Taylor

It was amazing to be nominated by the Academy who saw fit for me to be nominated for best supporting actor. The Critic's choice award was wonderful. I'm on cloud nine. — Giancarlo Esposito

I was 21 years and 218 days old when I received the Academy Award for Best Actress. I had just stepped into an imaginary world that I'd seen at a distance for years. — Marlee Matlin

It's also true that I might have never made Taxi Driver [1976] were it not for the success of Alice [Doesn't Live Here Anymore, 1974]. The question of commercialism is a source of worry. Must one make a choice, must it be a matter of either setting your sights on winning an Academy Award and becoming a millionaire, or making only the movies you want to make and starving to death? — Martin Scorsese

'Y Tu Mama Tambien' is one of the first unrated movies to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. But many video stores won't take a movie that's not rated, so I had to make the movie an R. — Alfonso Cuaron

I'd said to my sweetheart a couple of days before that the SAG and Spirit Award nomination was amazing and I had no attachment to the Academy Award. I knew I was an underdog so I just decided to sleep through the announcement. — John Hawkes

The team behind 'The Lego Movie' approached me. They wanted to do something extra special for the Academy Award performance of best song nominee 'Everything is Awesome.' They had seen my earlier version of a Lego Oscar statue, and I was happy to take on the challenge. — Nathan Sawaya

She pretends to be an actress, even though she hasn't even done enough acting to be a wannabe. But she's a real Academy Award winning manipulator. — Kenneth Eade

Dr. Upward was one of those Academy Award-winning Asses of Arrogance you find in educational administration, law or medicine. — David Mitchell

I had no idea that such a thing could happen. It never occurred to me.My son told me. He called me and said, "Darling, I just wanted you to know that you have been chosen to receive an honorary Academy Award." I was in the back of this car, and I said, "Oh," and burst into tears, of course, because it was so unexpected and quite wonderful. I thought it's been worth hanging around all these years. — Angela Lansbury

If I want to be up for an Academy Award, I'm either going to have to play a tour de force of some kind or have a tracheotomy just before the nominations. — Burt Reynolds

There's a lot of great movies that have won the Academy Award, and a lot of great movies that haven't. You just do the best you can. — Clint Eastwood

Bill Condon, I must say, may have been one of the best professional experiences of my life, collaborating with him. He, himself, is an Academy Award winning screenwriter. He is a storyteller first and foremost, so we speak the same language. We approach things always from the story. — Melissa Rosenberg

I was put under contract. A major studio. I got nominated for an Academy Award. Isn't that ridiculous? I mean, at the age of 18! — Angela Lansbury

I'd like to thank the Academy for my lifetime achievement award that I will eventually get. — Donald O'Connor

You can imagine what a trip this is for a Jewish girl from Great Neck-I get to win an Academy Award and meet Elizabeth Taylor at the same time. — Julia Phillips

Never mind what you've heard. Halle Berry was not the first black woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress. She was actually the 74th white one. And never mind all this talk about America electing its first black President; Barack Obama is actually the 44th white man to hold the job. — Jeffrey Kluger

Susan came down the hall in a white dress that fit her well. She looked like she was receiving an Academy Award for stunningness. I — Robert B. Parker

I'm not aiming for an Academy Award. — Andie MacDowell

My dad sent me a text saying, 'You know who you should play? Columbo. That's your Academy Award.' — Mark Ruffalo

When people speak these days, about an inevitable "Clash of Civilizations" in our world, what they often mean, I fear, is an inevitable "Clash of Religions." But I would use different terminology altogether. The essential problem, as I see it, in relations between the Muslim world and the West is "A Clash of Ignorance." And what I would prescribe -- as an essential first step -- is a concentrated educational effort.

Address by His Highness the Aga Khan to the Tutzing Evangelical Academy Upon Receiving the "Tolerance" Award - 20 May 2006 (Tutzing, Germany) — Aga Khan

Even Arnold's adviser says he was shocked by his decision to run. I mean, his people were backstage that night and they had no idea. He totally fooled them. Who knew Arnold was that good of an actor? If he had done that in a movie, he'd have an Academy Award by now. — Jay Leno

I think that no matter whether you're Quentin Tarantino or any other kind of a rebel, or whatever, everyone who makes movies still wants to win an Academy Award, because it's like the Pulitzer Prize or the Congressional Medal of Honor. — Robert Osborne

Men, you are about to embark on a great crusade to stamp out runaway decency in the west. Now you men will only be risking your lives, whilst I will be risking an almost certain Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. — Harvey Korman

Christ never told his disciples that they would get an Academy Award for their performances, but He did tell them to expect to have troubles. — Billy Graham

Things with my dad were pretty good until I won an Academy Award. He was really loving to me until I got more attention than he did. Then he hated me. — Tatum O'Neal

If one thing that bothers me about acting, it's that there's no clear-cut number one. The closest you can get is winning an Academy Award, and I'm going to work on that if it takes me the next 50 years. To my peers, it will mean that I'm the best! — Dana Hill

I've never taken time off from being an actor. This is the kind of career I'd be so happy to do until I die. I always joke to myself that I want to have a postmortem Academy Award Nomination. — Ansel Elgort

If a movie is nominated for, say, an Academy award, that movie will instantly become popular in Japan. There's always been a bit of a complex the Japanese have about being taken seriously in the West. — Hirokazu Koreeda