Meryl Streep had the entire Golden Globes audience on their feet and cheering when she delivered a powerful speech at Sunday’s awards ceremony.
The actress received the Cecile B Demile Lifetime Achievement award after scoring her 30th Golden Globe nomination for Florence Foster Jenkins.
Meryl spoke about where several of the evening’s nominees (including Amy Adams, Ryan Gosling, Dev Patel and Ruth Negga) were born, stunning many of them who clearly couldn’t believe the iconic star knew who they were.
Powerful: Meryl Streep delivered a moving speech at the Golden Globes | NBC
“Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if you kick us all out, you’ll have nothing to watch except for football and mixed martial arts, which are not arts,” she said.
Meryl explained that she had been troubled by seeing Donald Trump mocking a disabled reporter, calling it “one performance this year that stung me”.
“It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can’t get it out my head because it wasn’t in a movie, it was in real life,” she said.
“That instinct to humiliate when it’s modelled by someone in a public platform, it filters down into everyone’s life because it gives permission for others to do the same.
Moving: Viola Davis introduced her Doubt co-star | NBC
“Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose,” she added, encouraging the press to stand up to Trump.
To conclude her moving speech, Meryl added: “As my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia said, ‘Take your broken heart, make it into art.'”
Meryl had been introduced by her Doubt co-star Viola Davis, who also moved the audience with her words.
“Her artistry reminds us of the impact of what it means to be an artist, which is to make us feel less alone,” she said. “You make me proud to be an artist. You make me feel that what I have in me — my body, my face, my age — is enough.”
