Tonight Maggie Gyllenhaal won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Series for her role in The Honorable Woman. But instead of just applauding Hollywood for its roles for powerful women, she applauded the recent “wealth of roles for actual women” — women who are imperfect and complex. Here’s the great speech in full:
“Thank you so much. I gave my speech to my brother so if I need help he’s going to bring it up to me. Thank you so much to the Hollywood Foreign Press and to Sundance and the BBC.
I think I’ve noticed a lot of people talking about the wealth of roles for powerful women in television lately. And when I look around the room at the women who are in here and I think about the performances that I’ve watched this year, what I see actually are women who are sometimes powerful and sometimes not; sometimes sexy, sometimes not; sometimes honorable and sometimes not. And what I think is new is the wealth of roles for actual women in television and in film. That’s what I think is revolutionary, and evolutionary, and it’s what turning me on.
So I want to thank a couple of wonderfully complicated women in my life: my mom and Courtney Kivowitz and Amanda, and Elice and Michelle and my daughters who will one day be great women. And I also just — I want to thank my brother — they are telling me to wrap up, I’m sure that’s not a surprise to anyone. I gotta thank Hugo Blick, who wrote, directed, and produced every minute of The Honorable Woman, I share this with you. And to my husband, who is a lover of complicated women, obviously, I could have never done this without you. Thank you so much.”
