After her rousing speech in Barbie became one of the blockbuster’s most iconic moments, America Ferrera accepted the SeeHer Award at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards with another powerful speech.
The 39-year-old actress was the eighth recipient of the SeeHer Award, which was established in 2017 with Viola Davis getting the first trophy.
She was followed by Gal Gadot in 2018, Claire Foy in 2019, Kristen Bell in 2020, Zendaya in 2021, Halle Berry in 2022 and Janelle Monae in 2023.
The award honors actresses who advocate for gender equality and portray characters that push boundaries on the silver screen.
After being introduced by her co-star Margot Robbie, the fashionable America Ferrera took to the stage to deliver an impassioned speech that brought many ladies in the audience to tears.
After her rousing speech in Barbie became one of the blockbuster’s most iconic moments, America Ferrera accepted the SeeHer Award at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards with another powerful speech
After being introduced by her co-star Margot Robbie , the fashionable America Ferrera took to the stage to deliver an impassioned speech that brought many ladies in the audience to tears
‘Thank you so much to the Critics Choice Association! Your powerful voices shape how people think about and value the stories we tell. I’m deeply thankful to you for this honor,’ she began.
‘Receiving an award for my contributions to more authentic portrayals of women and girls is so incredibly meaningful to me because I grew up as a first generation Honduran-American girl in love with TV, film and theater, who desperately wanted to be a part of a storytelling legacy that I could not see myself reflected in,’ she added.
‘Of course, I could feel myself in characters who were strong and complex, but these characters rarely, if ever, looked like me,’ she admitted.
‘I yearned to see people like myself on screen as full humans. When I started working over 20 years ago, it seemed impossible that anyone could make a career portraying fully dimensional Latina characters,’ she added
‘But because of writers, directors, producers & executives daring enough to rewrite outdated stories and challenge deeply entrenched biases, I and a few of my sister colleagues, have been superemly blessed,’ she said before skipping over a part of her speech.
‘Because of that we had the chance to bring through some deeply layered Latina characters. Characters I couldn’t have seen growing up. But now I can see her,’ she said.
‘But now I can see her and I see her expanding in the next generation of talent like my beloved Ariana Greenblatt, who plays my daughter in Barbie, and in Jenna Ortega, and in Selena Gomez, and in so many more out there,’ she said.
‘To me, this is the best and highest use of storytelling to affirm one another’s full humanity, to uphold the truth that we are all worthy of being seen — Black, brown, indigenous Asian, trans, disabled, any body type, any gender. We are all worthy of having our lives richly and authentically reflective,’ Ferrera said.
‘Thank you so much to the Critics Choice Association! Your powerful voices shape how people think about and value the stories we tell. I’m deeply thankful to you for this honor,’ she began.
‘Receiving an award for my contributions to more authentic portrayals of women and girls is so incredibly meaningful to me because I grew up as a first generation Honduran-American girl in love with TV, film and theater, who desperately wanted to be a part of a storytelling legacy that I could not see myself reflected in,’ she added
‘To me, this is the best and highest use of storytelling to affirm one another’s full humanity, to uphold the truth that we are all worthy of being seen — Black, brown, indigenous Asian, trans, disabled, any body type, any gender. We are all worthy of having our lives richly and authentically reflective,’ Ferrera said
‘There have been so many people along my path who have truly seen me and who I would not be here without. So I have to think Jodi Peikoff, Carrie Byalick, Kim Gillingham, Ali Trustman and my wonderful team at CAA and my incredible publicists, Molly Kawachi and Brianna Smith,’ she said.
‘I also know that I would not be standing here today now without Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig. Margot, where’d you go? Margot, you saw value in Barbie, an entirely female idea that most would have dismissed as too girly, too frivolous or just too problematic. But you had the courage and the vision to take it on. Thank you for gifting the world with Barbie,’ she added.
And Greta. Greta, I can’t see you because the cameraman is standing right and I can only see Ryan [Gosling]. There you are. Greta, thank you for proving through your incredible mastery as a filmmaker that women’s stories have no difficulty achieving cinematic greatness and box office history at the same time and that unabashedly telling female stories does not diminish your powers, it expands them. Greta, your mind, your talent, your heart have inspired us all. And thank you for asking me to be your Gloria,’ she said.
‘Thank you to thank you to our Kens — Noah Baumbach, Tom Ackerley, David Heyman and Ryan Gosling — for all being man enough to support women’s work. You are all brilliant and you are more than “Kenough,”‘ she said.
‘Thank you to Pam Abdy, Mike De Luca, Robbie Brenner and the wonderful teams at Warner Bros. and Mattel for all of your support,’ she continued.
‘And thank you to my husband, my husband Ryan, not Gosling, the other one. El esposo de Gloria. You see me and my dreams and you believe and support them as if they were your own. I love you,’ she said.
‘This is for every kid yearning to break in. I see you, and you’ve got this. Thank you. Goodnight,’ Ferrera concluded.