Tony Awards 2018: Andrew Garfield gives impassioned speech for LGBTQ community

'We are all sacred and we all belong, so let’s just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked'

Andrew Garfield picked up the Tony Award for best leading actor at Sunday’s ceremony.

Winning for his portrayal of Prior Walter in the Broadway revival of Angels in America, the actor was nominated alongside Denzel Washington (The Iceman Cometh), Tom Hollander (Travesties), Jamie Parker (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), and Mark Rylance (Farinelli and the King).

In his acceptance speech for what marks the actor’s first Tony, Garfield touched on the recent Supreme Court decision that ruled in favour of a baker in Colorado who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, as part of an impassioned dedication to the LGBTQ community.

“At a moment in time where maybe the most important thing that we remember right now is the sanctity of the human spirit, it is the profound privilege of my life to play Prior Walter in Angels in America because he represents the purest spirit of humanity, and especially that of the LGBTQ community,” he noted. “It is a spirit that says no to oppression. It is a spirit that says no to bigotry, no to shame, no to exclusion.”

“It is a spirit that says we are all made perfectly. And we all belong. So I dedicate this award to the countless LGBTQ people who have fought and died to protect that spirit, to protect that message for the right to live and love as we are created to.”

“We are all sacred and we all belong, so let’s just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked!” he concluded.

The character of Prior Walter in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is a gay man living with AIDs, who experiences heavenly visions throughout the play. You can see the full list of winners from the night here.

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