"Thank you to the other nominees. All these performances were
impeccable in my opinion. I didn't see a false note anywhere. I
want to thank Jean-Marc Vallée, our director. Want to thank Jared
Leto, Jennifer Garner, who I worked with daily.
"There's a few things, about three things to my account that I
need each day. One of them is something to look up to, another is
something to look forward to, and another is someone to chase. Now,
first off, I want to thank God. 'Cause that's who I look up to.
"He has graced my life with opportunities that I know are not of
my hand or any other human hand. He has shown me that it's a
scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates. In the words of the
late Charlie Laughton, who said, 'When you've got God, you got a
friend. And that friend is you.'
"To my family, that who and what I look forward to. To my father
who, I know he's up there right now with a big pot of gumbo. He's
got a lemon meringue pie over there. He's probably in his
underwear. And he's got a cold can of Miller Lite and he's dancing
right now.
Oscars 2014: Red carpet in pictures
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"And to my hero. That's who I chase. Now when I was 15 years
old, I had a very important person in my life come to me and say
'who's your hero?' And I said, 'I don't know, I gotta think about
that. Give me a couple of weeks.' I come back two weeks later, this
person comes up and says 'who's your hero?' I said, 'I thought
about it. You know who it is? It's me in 10 years.' So I turned 25.
Ten years later, that same person comes to me and says, 'So, are
you a hero?' And I was like, 'not even close. No, no, no.' She
said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because my hero's me at 35.' So you see every
day, every week, every month and every year of my life, my hero's
always 10 years away. I'm never gonna be my hero. I'm not gonna
attain that. I know I'm not, and that's just fine with me because
that keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing.
"So, to any of us, whatever those things are, whatever it is we
look up to, whatever it is we look forward to, and whoever it is
we're chasing, to that I say, 'Amen.' To that I say, 'Alright,
alright, alright.' To that I say 'just keep living.' Thank
you."
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