And the Oscar goes to…

We’ve been counting down the hours till the celebrities hit the red carpet, and we finally have the list of the lucky winners. The Oscars ceremony is over, and this marks the ending of the film award season. Oscars fans will have to wait a whole year for the celebration to come again, but in the meanwhile, and to make the waiting experience a bit less distressing, we can delight ourselves with the best acceptance speeches and quotes from the red carpet and backstage.

For a start, let’s have a look at Ben Affleck words.

In his guise as producer, Affleck accepted the best picture awards for Argo. He used the speech to look back to 1998, when he and Matt Damon won the best screenplay award for Good Will Hunting, and to his rocky Hollywood career in the intervening years.

“I was here 15 years ago and I had no idea what I was doing, stood out here in front of you all, I was just a kid. I never thought I’d be back.”

“So many people extended themselves to me and I want to thank them. You can’t hold grudges, it’s hard, but you can’t hold grudges.”

“It doesn’t matter how you get knocked down in life. All that matters is that you get up,” he said, choking back tears.

Now try to find a word/expression that means the following:

• The appearance of somebody
• Uncertain and difficult, and not likely to last long
• Happening between two times or between other events
• A strong feeling of anger for a person who has treated you badly
• To force yourself not to show your feelings

If you need some help, you can find the key to this exercise and some notes on pronunciation and usage in this pdf file.

It’s Jennifer Lawrence’s turn now.

Lawrence took a tumble as she walked on stage to collect her best actress award, but received a standing ovation nonetheless.

“This is nuts,” she smiled. “I know you’re only standing up because you feel bad that I fell.”

Later, she joked with reporters: “They wax the stairs”, although she admitted “a bad word that starts with ‘f'” had run through her mind.

Now try to find a word/expression that means the following:

• To fall quickly and without control
• When the audience stands up to clap
• Used to express a situation is stupid or doesn’t make sense to you
• To put a thin layer of paraffin (a soft yellowish substance) on the surface of something to improve its appearance
• When a word or idea occurs to you

If you need some help, you can find the key to this exercise and some notes on pronunciation and usage in this pdf file.

And let’s finish with the conversation backstage between Anne Hathaway and Kristen Stewart.

Hathaway, who was clutching her best supporting actress award, ran into Kristen Stewart backstage, and was surprised to see her on crutches.

“Oh no!” Hathaway said.

“I know, I’m an idiot,” Stewart replied. “But congratulations!”

“Please tell me you’re going on stage with those,” Hathaway said, pointing to the crutches.

“Nope. I’m gonna hobble,” Stewart said.

“Well, break a leg,” Hathaway said.

“Oops.”

Now try to find a word/expression meaning the following:

• To take hold of something tightly
• To meet somebody you know unexpectedly
• Sticks with a piece that fits under the arm, which you use when you have difficulty in walking
• To walk in an awkward way, usually because of you’re injured
• Expression used to wish good luck to an actor/actress or other performance artists

If you need some help, you can find the key to this exercise and some notes on pronunciation and usage in this pdf file.

Traditionally, acceptance speeches tend to be sentimental, comical, witty or satirical. Some artists even pretend they had to improvise their speech because of winning a totally unexpected accolade. Just for a moment, let’s imagine we are among the nominees for an Oscar – you pick the category. What would your speech be like? Ok, now you can go stand in front of the mirror rehearsing your Oscar speech while holding a shampoo bottle. We can’t wait to hear how it goes!