“I’m a sucker for a free tuxedo.”
Billy Crystal, on hosting the Oscars for the sixth time (1998)
“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sounds like something Siegfried and Roy do on vacation.”
Host Steve Martin (2001)
“I saw the trailer forDude, Where’s My Car?, and it ruined it for me. Maybe that’s not fair because I had read the book.”
Host Steve Martin (2001)
“You know, I swore that if I ever won an Oscar, I would say thank you to all the waiters and waitresses who used to cover my shift for me so I could run downtown on the subway and audition. I wish I’d said something to the waiters.”
Best Supporting Actress Marcia Gay Harden (2001)
“Put down that stick, I’m going to be here for a while. I love it up here! I love the world! I’m so happy, thank you. A girl’s got to have her moment. Everybody tries to get me to shut up. It didn’t work with my parents and it didn’t work now.”
Best Actress Julia Roberts, about her acceptance speech going over the 45-second limit (2001)
“Look at this crowd; it’s like the million white man march.”
Presenter Chris Rock (1999)
“I would like to thank my parents…they gave me the biggest gift of poverty. I want to thank them for that.”
Roberto Benigni, accepting the Best Foreign Film Oscar (1999)
“I never actually held [an Oscar]. It was always just this strange thing in your grandma’s house.”
Best Supporting Actress Angelina Jolie, referring to her dad Jon Voight’s Oscar that was kept beneath a fishbowl at his mother’s house (2000)
“And how was your weekend? Mine was good.”
Presenter and Liar Liar star Jim Carrey on his movie’s record $31.4 million weekend box office debut (1997)
“I’m not going to lie to you. I was a little disappointed by not being nominated myself.
But I took to my bed for two weeks and then I discovered this wonderful support group called Non-Nominees Anonymous, or Non-Anon. It is to them that I would like to express my gratitude for helping me out of my deep funk into this shallow one.”
Presenter Debbie Reynolds (1997)
“Well, the way things are going–aside from wheat and auto parts–America’s
biggest export is now the Oscar.”
Host Billy Crystal, referring to all the Oscars won by non-American films (1997)
“I just want to thank everybody I’ve ever met in my entire life.”
Best Supporting Actress Kim Basinger (1998)
“It’s the Golden Dude. I’ve been here three times before and lost. My odds for
winning were about the same as the Jamaican bobsled team winning.”
Best Supporting Actor Robin Williams (1998)
“And most of all I want to thank my father up there, the man who–when I said I
wanted to be an actor–he said, ‘Wonderful, just have a backup profession like
welding.'”
Best Supporting Actor Robin Williams (1998)
“I just said to Matt [Damon], losing would suck and winning would be really scary.
And it’s really, really scary.”
Best Screenplay Award Winner Ben Affleck (1998)
“I realize you’re all alive.”
Presenter Haley Joel Osment, whose famous line from The Sixth Sense
is, “I see dead people” (2000)
“I haven’t worked since I won the Academy Award. I haven’t had anything really
good to do. I mean, I got a lot of nasty old men parts, but that doesn’t seem to pay
the bills.”
Presenter James Coburn, referring to his Best Supporting Oscar in 1999 for his role in Affliction (2000)
“She has given me what I value most, her love, and she’s given me Catherine and
Ben and Isabel and, at the moment, this much anticipated and very loved unnamed
being who could actually join us any minute right here in the second row if I don’t
wrap this up.”
Thalberg Award winner Warren Beatty, referring to his very pregnant wife Annette
Bening (2000)
