“In case this is the last time I get to thank anyone,” Jared Leto said yesterday on receiving the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male, “I wrote down a couple names.” He then thanked his costar Matthew McConaughey, adding, “After Dallas Buyers Club I think I’m gonna pull an opposite McConaissance and just do romantic comedies.” He also thanked homemade burritos, the makers of vegan butter, “Whitcomb L. Judson, the inventor of the zipper,” Wayne Gretzky, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Ansel Adams, Jackson Pollock, Steve Jobs and Baby Jesus. And “I want to thank all the women I’ve been with, and all the women who think they’ve been with me.” And “my future ex-wife Lupita” Nyong’o, the 12 Years a Slave actress whom the press has linked romantically, and perhaps fancifully, with Leto. “I’m thinkin’ about ya.” Finally he acknowledged “the 36 million who have died of AIDS and the 35 million who are still living with HIV-AIDS around the world. I dedicate this to you, to the LGBT and Q community. Here’s to life.” (READ: Why Jared Leto will win Best Supporting Actor) A saving grace of the Independent Spirit Awards, which pay tribute to films with budgets under $20 million, is that the winners don’t get played off the stage after 45 seconds. They get to talk as long as they want; McConaughey, in his speech for winning Best Actor, went on for six (agreeable) minutes. He may have spoken longer: the evening TV version of the afternoon awards, played on IFC, trimmed some of the acceptance speeches, including Leto’s. And it didn’t air or even announce the awards for Foreign Film (Blue Is the Warmest Color), Cinematography (12 Years a Slave), Editing (Short Term 12) or Ensemble Cast, which went to Mud, starring… Matthew McConaughey. IFC cut those important parts of the ceremony for time, yet kept all of host Patton Oswalt’s subpar opening monologue plus many lame all-star presentations (excepting Andy Samberg and Bill Hader’s droll listing of the women who had inspired them, including Cher,![]()
