Short YouTube livestream commentary by TJ Walker discussing Viola Davis’s Emmy acceptance speech. Walker praises Davis’s preparation, emotional control, brevity, genuine perspective, and the speech’s effective mix of gratitude, surprise, and substance, and recommends viewers watch the under-two-minute speech linked in the video description.
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Viola Davis gives the best acceptance speech at this year's Emmy Award. If you haven't seen the speech yet, click below. It's in the description, the YouTube link. You can see the entire speech. It's less than two minutes long. What made her acceptance speech so powerful? For starters, she prepared something. She wasn't one of these typical Hollywood celebrities who gets up, I didn't think I would win. I didn't prepare anything. And wasting people's time and being boring. She clearly had prepared. She came up with something surprising, thought provoking, an interesting quote. She was very, very emotional, but she didn't start blubbering. She kept it all together. It was brief, it fit the confines of the awards show, and yet she said a lot. She had a particular point of view when she thanked people. It came across as incredibly genuine. It wasn't sort of getting up there with, I'd like to thank my tax accountant. I'd like to thank my cpa, I'd like to thank my. It wasn't all the boring, perfunctory nonsense. You can do that behind the stage with a thank you cam. So overall, an excellent, excellent speech. Anyone who's ever nominated for any Hollywood, for that matter, for any award, do yourself a favor. Check out the speech below. It really is a perfect example of the right mix of gratitude, thanks, surprise, emotion, and saying something interesting.