An excerpt from Matthew McConaughey’s acceptance speech for Best Actor at the 2014 Oscars.
There’s a few things, about three things to my count, that I need each day. One I need something to look up to, another something to look forward to, and another is someone to chase. Now first off I want to thank God, because that’s who I look up to. To my family, that’s who and what I look forward to.
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 is 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?” And so I thought about it and I said you know who it is, it’s me in 10 years.
So I turn 25, 10 years later that same person comes to me and goes “so are you a hero?” And I was like, not even close. No, no, no. She said “Why?” I said because my hero is me at 35. So you see every day, every week, every month and every year of my life, my hero is always 10 years away. I’m never going to beat my hero. I’m not going to obtain 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 that is we look up to, whatever it is we look forward to, and whoever it is we are chasing, to that I say amen. To that I say alright, alright, alright. And to that I say just keep living. Thank you.