Read the Full Transcript of Jodie Foster’s Golden Globes Speech

Thank you. Well, for all you SNL fans, I’m 50! I’m 50! You know, I need to do that without this dress on, but you know, maybe later. What do you say? I’m 50. You know, I was gonna bring my walker tonight, but it just didn’t go with the cleavage. Robert [Downey Jr.], I wanna thank you for everything, for your bat-crazed, rapid-fire brain, the sweet intro. I love you and Susan, and I am so grateful that you continually talk me off the ledge when I go on and foam at the mouth and say, “I’m done with acting, I’m done with acting, I’m really done, I’m done, I’m done!” Trust me, 47 years in the film business is a long time, you just ask those Golden Globies because, you crazy kids, you’ve been around here forever, you know? Phil, you’re a nut. Aida, Scott, thank you for honoring me tonight. It is the most fun party of the year, and tonight I feel like the prom queen. Thank you.

Looking at those clips—you know, the hairdos and freaky platform shoes—it’s like a home movie nightmare that just won’t end, and all of these people sitting here at these tables, they’re my family of sorts. Fathers, mostly. Executives, producers, directors, my fellow actors out there. We’ve giggled through love scenes, we’ve punched and cried and spit and vomited and blown snot all over one another, and those are just the costars I liked. But, you know, more than anyone else I share my most special memories with members of the crew. Blood-shaking friendships, brothers and sisters, we made movies together, and you can’t get more intimate than that.

So while I’m here being all confessional, I just have a sudden urge to say something that I’ve never really been able to air in public. A declaration that I’m a little nervous about, but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist right now, huh, Jennifer? But I’m just gonna put it out there, loud and proud, right? So I’m gonna need your support on this … I am single. Yes, I am. I am single. No, I’m kidding, but I’m not really kidding, but I’m kind of kidding. Thank you for the enthusiasm, can I get a wolf whistle or something?

[sound cuts] wanna be a big coming-out speech tonight, because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the Stone Age, in those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family, co-workers, and then gradually, proudly, to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now, apparently, I’m told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance, and a prime-time reality show.

You guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child. Nope, I’m sorry, that’s just not me, it never was, and it never will be. But please don’t cry, because my reality show would be so boring. I would have to make out with Marion Cotillard or I’d have to spank Daniel Craig’s bottom, you know, just to stay on the air. You know, it’s not bad work if you can get it, though.

But seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you’d had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then, maybe, then you too would value privacy against all else. Privacy. Some day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was. I have given everything up there, from the time that I was 3 years old. That’s reality show enough, don’t you think?

There are a few secrets to keeping your psyche intact over such a long career. The first, love people and stay beside them. That table over there, 222, way out in Idaho, Paris, Stockholm, that one next to the bathroom with all the unfamous faces, the very same faces for all these years. My acting agent, Joe Funicello. Joe, do you believe it, what, 38 years we’ve been working together? Even though he doesn’t count the first eight. Matt Saver, Pat Kingsley, Jennifer Allen, Grant Niman, and his uncle Jerry Borack, may he rest in peace. Lifers. My family and friends here tonight and at home. And of course, Mel Gibson, you know you saved me too.

There is no way I could ever stand here without acknowledging one of the deepest loves of my life, my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life, my confessor, ski buddy, consigliere, most beloved BFF of 20 years, Cydney Bernard. Thank you, Cyd. I am so proud of our modern family, our amazing sons, Charlie and Kit, who are my reason to breathe and to evolve, my blood and soul. And boys, in case you didn’t know it, this song, like all of this, this song is for you.

This brings me to the greatest influence in my life, my amazing mother, Evelyn. Mom, I know you’re inside those blue eyes somewhere, and that there are so many things that you won’t understand tonight, but this is the only important one to take in: I love you, I love you, I love you. And I hope that if I say this three times, it will magically and perfectly enter into your soul, fill you with grace, and the joy of knowing that you did good in this life. You’re a great mom, please take that with you when you’re finally OK to go. You see, Charlie and Kit, sometimes your mom loses it too.

I can’t help but get moony, you know, this feels like the end of one era and the beginning of something else. Scary and exciting, and now what? Well, I may never be up on this stage again, on any stage for that matter. Change, you gotta love it. I will continue to tell stories, to move people by being moved, the greatest job in the world. It’s just that from now on I may be holding a different talking stick, and maybe it won’t be as sparkly, maybe it won’t open on 3,000 screens, maybe it will be so quiet and delicate that only dogs can hear it whistle. But it will be my writing on the wall: “Jodie Foster was here, I still am, and I want to be seen, to be understood deeply, and to be not so very lonely.” Thank you, all of you, for the company. Here’s to the next 50 years.