Acceptance Speech of Meryl Streep at the 84th Academy Awards

Meryl Streep won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role at the 2012 Academy Awards for her role in The Iron Lady.

The other nominations in this category includes Viola Davis for ‘The Help’, Glenn Close for ‘Albert Nobbs’, Rooney Mara for ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ and Michelle Williams for ‘My Week With Marilyn’.

Quite surprised that she won she exclaimed.."Oh my god.Oh c’mon.Alright.Thank you so much.Thank you, thank you," Meryl said on stage as she commenced her acceptance speech."When they called my name I’d had this feeling I could hear half of America going 'oh no..oh c’mon..why..her..again?' But whatever."

"First I’m going to thank Don because when you thank your husband at the end of the speech they play him out with the music and I want him to know that everything I value most in our lives you’ve given me," she continued. "And now secondly, my other partner: 37 years ago, my first play in New York City I met the great hairstylist and makeup artist Roy Helland and we worked together pretty continuously since the day we clapped eyes on each other. His first film with me was ‘Sophie’s Choice’ and all the way up to tonight when he won for his beautiful work in ‘The Iron Lady’, 30 years later, every single movie in between."

Meryl Streep concluded by saying, "And I just want to thank Roy but also I want to thank — because I really understand I’ll never be up here again — I really want to thank all my colleagues, all my friends. I look out here and I see my life before my eyes, my old friends, my new friends and really this is such a great honor but the thing that counts the most with me is the friendships and the love and the sheer joy we have shared making movies together. My friends, thank you, all of you, departed and here for this enigmatically wonderful career. Thank you so much. Thank you."

After accepting her award, Meryl spoke to reporters offstage and further joked about her long history of always being nominated but never winning. Still, Streep said that she wasn't worried about never winning again.

Inspite of several nominations, Meryl Streep hadn't won an Oscar since 1982.She had won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in ‘Sophie’s Choice’ in 1982.Earlier in 1979 she also had won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in ‘Kramer vs Kramer’.