Acceptance Speech for “The Piano” - 66th Annual Academy Awards®

I'm so overwhelmed. To be with that group of actresses just slays me. When I was six years old I started pretending to play the piano on the window sills of my bedroom in the house where I grew up. And then after a while my parents realized that I wasn't going to stop, so they got me a cardboard keyboard to play to see if that might, you know, if I would get tired of that. But I wasn't. I didn't. And so then they got me a piano. So for the next ten years they let me have piano lessons. So I need to thank Eileen Parish, my first piano teacher, and I need to thank my parents for letting me have these lessons.

And Jane Campion, I love you, I love you. Thank you so much for giving me a character and an experience that was so difficult to say good-bye to, except that I don't have to say good-bye to it because it's everybody's now. And that is such a gift. And Michael Nyman, who really gave me a veritable instruction manual for a way into "Ada McGrath" by giving the music, giving me the music that he gave me and the entire movie to experience. And Jan Chapman, our producer, for being so luminous and for giving "The Piano" and all of us a place to flourish. Harvey and Bob Weinstein, you also break my heart with your uncensored passion and support for this movie. And just thank you all so much for letting this movie in. And thanks.