Patricia Arquette last night picked up the first Academy Award for supporting actress in Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age story, Boyhood.
Arquette, who plays the mother of Ellar Coltrane’s Mason in the film, which deals in real world emotions about what it means to go through life and be a women.
In her acceptance speech, Arquette dedicated her Oscar to American women, and ended with a powerful call to action.
“To every woman who gave birth to every citizen and taxpayer 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.”
Patricia Arquette
And with that she brought Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez to their feet, and Twitter exploded with support.
Meryl Streep: “YES! YES! YES!” Mic drop.
I had the same reaction while watching this.. #oscars2015 pic.twitter.com/pIeBY5eUUN — Camille Backer (@CamilleBacker) February 23, 2015
In Boyhood, Patricia plays the mother to the main character, and throughout the nearly three-hour film, the audience sees her withstand the tribulations of single motherhood, divorce and domestic abuse.
Her role is touching, funny and without question worthy of the Oscar that it just garnered
Arquette, who also won the Golden Globe in the same category, beat out Laura Dern, Keira Knightley, Emma Stone and Meryl Streep, who has been nominated for an Academy Award a record 19 times.