Meryl Streep Remembers Carrie Fisher in Powerful Cecil B. DeMille Award Acceptance Speech: ''Take Your Broken Heart, Make It Into Art''

Viola Davis honors acclaimed actress with lifetime achievement award

By Gabi Duncan Jan 09, 2017 3:32 AMTags
Meryl Streep, 2017 Golden Globes, Cecil B. DeMille AwardPaul Drinkwater/NBC

Bow down to the queen!

Meryl Streep was the picture of grace as she took the stage to accept the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2017 Golden Globes for her outstanding accomplishments in film.

Doubt costar Viola Davis presented "Dame Streep" with the honor celebrating her exceptional body of work.

"She makes the most heroic characters vulnerable, the most known familiar, the most despised relatable," Davis explained. "Dame Streep, her artistry reminds us of the impact of what it means to be an artist, which is to make us feel less alone. I can only imagine where you go, Meryl, when you disappear into a character. You are muse."

She added, "You make me proud to be an artist. You make me feel that what I have in me—my body, my face, my age—is enough."

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Golden Globe Awards 2017 Winners: The Complete List
Watch: E! Looks Back at Meryl Streep in 1990!

Streep then took the stage to a standing ovation from her all her peers. And, despite losing her voice, the actress still managed to captivate the room with her powerful, acceptance speech that focused on the recent presidential election. 

"Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick them all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts," she stated. "An actor's only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us, and let you feel what that feels like."

She continued, "There was one performance this year that stunned me, it sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good, there was nothing good about it, but it was effective, and it did its job. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. It kind of broke my heart, and I still can't get it out of my head because it wasn't in a movie. It was real life. Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose."

"Tommy Lee Jones said to me, 'Isn't it such a privilege, Meryl, just to be an actor?' Yeah, it is. And, we have to remind each other of the privilege and the responsibility of the act of empathy."

Streep concluded her speech with a quote recalling the late Carrie Fisher. "As my friend, the dear, departed Princess Leia, said to me, 'Take your broken heart, make it into art.'"

The acclaimed actress, who has won eight Golden Globes over the course her esteemed career, was nominated again tonight for Best Actress for Florence Foster Jenkins. The Hollywood Foreign Press has bestowed the Cecil B. DeMille honor on the industry's most admired entertainers every year since 1952. Past recipients include Denzel Washington, George Clooney, Woody Allen, Jodie Foster, Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese. But of all the past honorees, there have only been 13 other women.

Here's to more girl power!

For complete Golden Globes coverage, watch E! News at 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.