Jennifer Connelly Recalls Feeling 'Panic' During Her 2002 Oscar Speech: I Had a 'Complete Shutdown'

Jennifer Connelly is looking back at feeling shocked during her big Oscars win.

The star, who won Best Supporting Actress at the 74th Academy Awards for A Beautiful Mind back in 2002, recalled on The Drew Barrymore Show how she felt “panic” when it came to going up onstage and giving her acceptance speech.

“For me, I think I [had a] complete shutdown, like, panic,” Connelly, now 53, said. “I was so nervous and overwhelmed.”

“I remember looking out at the audience full of all those extraordinary people and then just seeing it say 40 seconds and, you know, because there's a monitor that tells you how long you have to speak,” she continued. “And I saw it and I think I just, like, it's just a complete shock.” 

She said the whole night felt like an out-of-body experience. “I was kind of floating gliding into it arriving there,” she shared, adding that bringing her dad as her guest helped ground her. “I went there with my dad… he came with me, which was really special for me, and so he tethered me somewhat,” she said.

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A Beautiful Mind also won Best Picture, Best Director for Ron Howard, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Costar Russell Crowe was nominated for Best Actor, with other nominations for editing, original score and makeup.

Connelly also detailed the Oscar-winning moment in an interview on Today in 2003, saying that although she had appeared calm when her name was announced and when she got onstage, she had been anything but.

“I had a bit of the deer-in-the-headlights syndrome,” she said at the time. “It is an overwhelming moment, a big, big moment.” 

Connelly, who is promoting her new series Dark Matter, recently said on Late Night with Seth Meyers that her mother deserved the credit for getting her into acting when she was a young child, as she had “never” done a school play or watched movies.

"It was my mom's idea, and I started working," the Labyrinth star recalled. "Then at a certain point, when I got a little bit older, I was like, 'Do I really wanna do this? This isn't what I chose for my life.' "

"Well, here, I am, so obviously I re-chose it," she said. "But after some investigation and really thinking about it."

Dark Matter's first two episodes are now streaming on Apple TV+, with new episodes every Wednesday.