Da’Vine Joy Randolph gave an impassioned speech at the 2024 Oscars, thanking all who helped her get to the Dolby Theatre stage to accept the award for supporting actress.
“God is so good, God is so good,” said the “Holdovers” star, holding back tears. “I think I was supposed to be doing this as a career. I started off as a singer, and my mother said to me, ‘Go across that street to that theater department. There’s something for you there.’ I thank my mother for doing that.”
“I thank you to all the people who have stepped in my path and been there for me, who have ushered me and guided me,” she continued. “I am so grateful to all you beautiful people out here. For so long, I’ve always wanted to be different, and now I realize I just need to be myself.”
Randolph then specifically thanked her Yale School of Drama professor Ron Van Lieu. “When I was the only Black girl in that class, when you saw me and you told me I was enough. And when I told you, I don’t see myself, he said, ‘That’s fine. We’re going to forge our own path. You’re going to lay a trail for yourself.’”
She also expressed gratitude for “all the women who have been by my side,” and said, “I pray to God that I get to do this more than once. Thank you for seeing me.”
Randolph’s moving speech got laughs when she made “a special shout-out to my publicist, and I know y’all say, ‘Don’t say nothing ‘bout no publicist, but you don’t have a publicist like I have a publicist!” she said. “You have been by my side, and I’m forever grateful.”
After the commercial break, host Jimmy Kimmel noted that Randolph forgot to mention her publicist’s name — Marla Farrell of Shelter PR — in the speech, and joked, “You shouldn’t have to pay for the rest of the year.”