Patricia Arquette's acceptance speech is the one to beat, and no one believes this more than her fellow nominee Meryl Streep. Accepting the trophy for her supporting role in Boyhood, Arquette made things political in the most plainspoken way possible:

The 20 stars nominated for Academy Awards this year represent some of the most talented (or, anyway, famous) actors on screen today. At one point, however, they were slack-jawed, blank-eyed, no-name novices. They’d probably like to forget their often humiliating early work, but thanks to the magic of technology, they can never escape it. From Ed Norton’s educational ESL VHS to Emma Stone’s completely mortifying renditions of pop songs on an American Idol knock-off show, so much of the early work of these nominees is jaw-droppingly bad.