Glenn Close emphasised the "power" of film as she accepted the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role in a Motion Picture on Sunday (27.01.19).
The 71-year-old actress – who scooped the honour ahead of Emily Blunt (‘Mary Poppins Returns’), Olivia Colman (‘The Favourite’), Lady Gaga (A Star is Born’) and Melissa McCarthy (‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’) – gave a passionate speech calling for "empathy and understanding" when she took to the stage at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium to accept the statuette for her role in ‘The Wife’.
She said: "Oh my gosh, I am so proud to be in this union. I am so proud to receive this award from my fellow actors and I think of all of us sitting in the room, all of you watching on TV, all of you who haven’t had the chances we had and I salute you with this.
"One of the most powerful things we have as two human beings is two eyes looking into two eyes and film is the only art form that allows us the close-up and it substitutes for real life two eyes looking into two eyes.
"I think we have to remember how powerful that is in a world that is consumed with different size screens, that all we have are two human eyes looking into two other eyes, that will give us empathy and understanding."
Glenn went on to thank the "incredible" cast and crew who had worked on the movie and gave a special shout-out to her co-star Jonathan Pryce.
She said: "My beautiful Jonathan Pryce, you can’t have a wife without a husband, he was a magnificent collaborator.
"Thank you for honouring me with this, I honour you, I’m so proud to be a part of you."
Glenn Close celebrates the power of film
