“I was not educated enough”: The celebrated moment Frances McDormand regrets
Realistically, being one of the most decorated and lauded actors in history would suggest an ability to pass judgment on the industry’s most pertinent issues with supreme confidence, but Frances McDormand ended up regretting one of her more famously outspoken moments.
Thanks entirely to her status and reputation, whenever she talks, people tend to listen. In a storied career spanning more than 40 years, McDormand has amassed a glittering filmography that’s comparable in terms of both acclaim and accolades to anyone who’s ever set foot on the silver screen.
Only Katharine Hepburn has won more Academy Awards for ‘Best Actress’ than McDormand’s three, and when she won her fourth Oscar in total for producing Nomadland, she became the first performer in history to win a pair of statues for producing and starring in the same movie.
McDormand is also one of only 24 people to secure the vaunted ‘Triple Crown’ of acting by winning at least one Oscar, Emmy, and Tony for their performances, which puts her on the same footing as Rita Moreno, Maggie Smith, Al Pacino, Helen Mirren, and Ingrid Berman among others.
Toss in three Baftas, a pair of Golden Globes, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and speaking candidly shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. However, when McDormand took the stage after winning her Nomadland acting Oscar and told the world, “I have two words to leave you with tonight, ladies and gentlemen: inclusion rider,” she wished she’d handled it differently.
An inclusion rider is a contractual clause that allows actors to request a certain volume of diversity among the cast and crew of any given production. Almost instantly, studio executives, agents, and representatives were being inundated with questions and requests over how they should be implemented, with McDormand inadvertently kicking that particular door open.
“I wish I’d never fucking said it now,” she admitted to The Hollywood Reporter. “I was not educated enough, I didn’t have enough information about it. I forgot what I was going to say at the end of a very prepared speech.” Although it was admirable to shine a light on what was a largely unknown aspect of piecing together a film, McDormand conceded that “inclusion in the workplace is very, very important, and it is complicated, and it has to be almost customised for every single event.”
That’s not to say she was out of line or in the wrong, but by incorporating the inclusion rider into her acceptance speech without elaborating on the complexities and nuances of how it varies from project to project, McDormand wishes she’d highlighted the issue in a method other than speaking it out loud in front of her peers, colleagues, contemporaries, and a worldwide television audience without adding any further details or context.