If there were ever anyone deserving of an Oscar acceptance-speech do-over, that would be Moonlight director Barry Jenkins. As we all probably know, La La Land was announced as the Best Picture winner at the Oscars by accident, and Jenkins, in the rush of the moment, wasn’t granted the time to give an acceptance speech.
But now he has shared what that speech would have been. In an interview with EW, Jenkins said that his last-minute speech was imperfect, and if given the chance, he would have said something like this:
[Moonlight playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney] and I are this kid. We are Chiron. And you don’t think that kid grows up to be nominated for eight Academy Awards. It’s not a dream he’s allowed to have. I still feel that way. I didn’t think this was possible. But, now, I look at other people looking at me, and if I didn’t think it was possible, how are they going to? But now it’s happened. So what I think of possibility, let’s take it off the table. The thing has happened.
Something tells me it won’t be the last time Jenkins takes home an Oscar.