Before last year's Oscars, it was revealed that in the history of the Academy Awards, Harvey Weinstein had been thanked more during winners' acceptance speeches than God. This year, it's Meryl Streep who gets that honor, at least when looking at the last 12 years.
That's the finding from Nathaniel Rodgers, editor of The Film Experience, who took a deep-dive into the 47 speeches given by actors and actresses at the Academy Awards since 2001. (The 48th winner, Heath Ledger, received a posthumous Oscar.) Writing for Slate, Rodgers noted that Streep -- herself a winner at the 2012 ceremony for "The Iron Lady" -- was thanked four times, while God drew only three mentions.
Just before the Oscars in 2013, Rebecca Rolfe, a graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, did her own research, crunching the numbers on 207 speeches since the first televised Oscar broadcast in 1953. Rolfe found that Weinstein, erstwhile head of Miramax and current co-chairman of The Weinstein Company, had been thanked 12 times throughout Oscars history, one more time than God.
For a full look at Rodgers' numbers and date, head to Slate. His site, The Film Experience, can be found here.
[via Slate]
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