Sunday evening was a bit of an emotional night for most of us. Twelve years after his first nomination, Leonardo DiCaprio finally won his first Oscar. Amongst all the glitz, glam, and Chris Rock’s humor, there were a few lessons to be learned from Leo’s gracious presence and acceptance speech:
1. Always Persevere
Leo’s first Oscar nomination was twelve years ago. He’s been nominated for an Academy Award six times, many of which he’s deserved for films like What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, The Aviator, and The Wolf of Wall Street. This doesn’t even include some of his other crowd favorites that weren’t nominated like Titanic, Inception, and Romeo and Juliet. Over the years he has continually challenged himself to try a variety of roles and strengthen his technique. DiCaprio embodies the trait of perseverance and shows us that hard work pays off, even if it takes awhile.
2. Stay Humble.
If you’ve seen The Revenant or even just clips of it, you know that Leo deserved the award he won. After years of his long acting career leading up to this moment, he was definitely excited to finally bask in the glory of winning a prestigious Oscar. However, Leo remained gracious as always and thanked his coworkers for the film, the people who helped him get to that point, and congratulated other actors and actresses as well.
3. Climate change needs to be addressed.
Award winners are given under two minutes to give an acceptance speech. With all the hard work and collaboration that goes into the making of a great film, that’s nowhere near enough time to discuss all of it. In the short amount of time he was given, Leo brought up something bigger than himself and discussed climate change. In case you missed his speech, he said, “Climate change is real. It is happening right now. It’s the most urgent threat facing our entire species and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters or the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity.” He’s talented, humble, smart, AND environmentally conscious. Talk about dreamy.
Well done Leo, well done.