Read Patricia Arquette's Oscars acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress in full

The actress used the opportunity to champion women's rights across the US

Patricia Arquette making her acceptance speech for winning Best Actress Award (Getty Images)

"Okay, Jesus. Thank you to the Academy, to my beautiful, powerful nominees.

"To IFC, Jonathan Sehring, John Sloss, Cathleen Sutherland, Molly Madden, David DeCamillo, our whole cast and our crew.

"My Boyhood family, who I love and admire. Our brilliant director Richard Linklater. The impeccable Ethan Hawke. My lovelies, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater. Thomas and Paul, thank you for giving me my beautiful children. Enzo and Harlow, you’re the deepest people that I know.

"My friends who all work so hard to make this world a better place. To my parents, Rosanna, Richmond, Alexis and David.

"To my favorite painter in the world, Eric White, for the inspiration of living with a genius. To my heroes, volunteers and experts who have helped me bring ecological sanitation to the developing world with GiveLove.org.

"To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America."

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