"I'm really in pursuit of greatness."

And we should all be.

Dear Reader,

It’s the season of the awards these days. I’m writing this after watching the Oscars but it’s not about that. This post, is about the award acceptance speech of Timothée Chalamet at the 2025 SAG awards. For those who don’t know, Timothée won the award for being the ‘Outstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role’ at the 31st Screen Actor Guild (SAG) Awards a few days ago. This was for his critically acclaimed portrayal of the legendary singer Bob Dylan in the 2024 American biographical musical drama film ‘A Complete Unknown’. Mind you, after winning this award, Timothée has become the youngest actor to win in the best male category in the history of SAG awards.

After accepting the trophy, he delivered a memorable acceptance speech, which soon became a piece of discussion on the Internet. Before telling you my thoughts on his speech, let me attach his speech here.

“I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to me, but the truth is this was five years of my life. I poured everything I had into playing this incomparable artist, Mr. Bob Dylan. A true American hero, and it was an honour of a lifetime playing him. It’s an honour I share with Monica (Barbaro), Elle (Fanning), Edward (Norton), the entire cast, who, in a genre doing a biopic that could be perhaps tired, gave it their all. So I’m deeply grateful to them. And lastly, I can’t downplay the significance of this award because it means the most to me. I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats. I’m inspired by the greats here tonight. I’m as inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Viola Davis as I am by Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, and I want to be up there. So I’m deeply grateful. This doesn’t signify that, but it’s a little more fuel. It’s a little more ammo to keep going. Thank you so much.”

So, did you read his entire speech? Alright. As you can read, Timothée starts his speech by emphasising the fact that downplaying his efforts is the classiest thing one can do but the truth is that he has put a lot of effort into perfecting this role. Then, he talks about Bob Dylan, an absolute American hero and how it was an honour to play him in this movie. He mentions the names of other actors in the movie cast who gave it their all for this biopic, and he’s deeply grateful to them. Lastly, he re-emphasises the fact that he can’t downplay the significance of this award as it means so much to him. He further adds, that acting is a subjective business, but the truth is, he’s really in the pursuit of greatness. He knows that people don’t usually like to talk like this, but still he says that he wants to become one of the greats. He goes on to mention the name of the greats that inspire him and how he also wants to be on their level someday. And, to everyone, he’s deeply grateful. This award is not signifying this but it acts as a little more fuel, helping and pushing him to keep going until he reaches to that level. He ends his speech with a thanks.

This is such a sweet, joyous, and empowering speech by him but unfortunately, most of the jobless people on social media are criticising him for being too arrogant and rather delusional. Why? Cause he just said that in his acting career, he’s striving for greatness, and he aspires to be among the greats. Now tell me, is it wrong to dream big? Should we not aspire to be the greatest? Why is downplaying ourselves and being humble all the time is the norm?

If you ask me, I don’t think he sounded arrogant at all. For me, he sounded passionate and dedicated to his craft. The fact that he has the guts to dream about becoming one of the greats in the future is enough to convince me that he will continue doing phenomenal work with pure dedication, finesse and hard work. He did say, that being humble and downplaying your efforts is the most common thing to do while accepting an award, which is true. Those who do that are doing the absolute right thing, but those who want to show their enthusiasm, passion, dedication, and aspiration can equally do so by talking about their dreams of achieving greatness.

His speech made me realise that a lot of people these days, berate and undermine themselves and their efforts. That is why, when someone tries to acknowledge their own efforts, they get heavily criticised by the same people. Actually, the problem is not them but how we perceive things these days. Everyone wants to live in the now, and no one thinks about the future, or even doing something big when they reach a certain age.

The zeal to achieve something, to do something influential, or just accepting their own efforts and achievements with pure joy and self-love has died down these days. No-one likes those who are talking about themselves or their achievements. For example, you might have seen those notes about achieving x number of subscribers and how it means a lot to them and they aspire for more. Instead of congratulating, people would criticise them for being too self obsessed and lecture them about being humble.

NO! We should be humble when it is needed but we should also accept and be proud of our own efforts when it is necessary. No-one has the right to berate you and make you feel small or bad about yourself. You are your own person, who can only be influenced by your own opinions, thoughts and feelings. Try to get less affected by what others say and focus on what you feel about yourself more. We should often practice self praise as it helps us to feel good about ourselves and also support us during the times, when no-one else wants to support us. Remember, you are the one and only person, who can think good of yourself. Others might advise you to do this or that but the decision taking power is in your hands. So, listen to everyone but do what you want to.

If you wanna talk about achieving greatness in the future, do that. If you wanna dream big, no-one has the right to tell you, that you should come out of your delusional bubble. What are they gaining by telling you to not do this or that? I don’t know, maybe some weird satisfaction. But, what are you gaining? Nothing, and you’re definitely losing your self-confidence, self-love and self-worth because of some other person’s stupid opinion about you and your life.

These were my thoughts about the speech given by Timothée at the SAG awards. I will be writing a similar post about my thoughts on the 2025 Oscar winners soon. Before that, I will be watching each and every ‘talked about’ movie that was nominated and eventually won at the Oscars. That would take time as I don’t want to rush myself or form an opinion without even watching something. Anyways, this was just a random post I wrote, about the act of self-praising after getting to know about all the criticism Timothée was getting because of his speech. What he did was absolutely empowering and we should be happy about an actor who has a dream of becoming great! At least he has a dream, because these days, many actors are just in the business for the money and fame. They have no goals, no desires and they just want to live in the present which is good for them but it’s not the only morally correct thing one should be doing. Thank you for reading.

Farewell.