Matthew McConaughey dedicated his Best Actor Oscar to God.
The overjoyed star was delighted to accept the trophy for his role in ‘Dallas Buyer’s Club’ – which saw him lose 50lbs to play A.I.D.S. patient Ron Woodroof – and kissed his wife and hugged fellow nominee Leonardo DiCaprio as he went to accept the award.
He said: “First off I want to thank God, because he’s the one I look up to, he’s graced my life with opportunities which I know are not of my hand or any other human hand.
“He has shown me that it’s a scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates. In the words of the late [British actor] Charlie Laughton, who said, ‘When you got God you got a friend and that friend is you.’ ”
Mathew then went on to thank his family, including his mother, Mary, his father, James, his wife, Camila Alves, and their three children, Levi, five, Vida, four and Livingston, 14 months.
He added: “To my family, that’s who and what I look forward to. To my father, I know he’s up there right now with a big pot of Gumbo, he’s got a lemon meringue pie, he’s probably up there in his underwear, he’s got a cold can of Miller lite and he’s dancing right now.
“To my dad, you taught me what it means to be a man, to my mother, who’s here tonight, you taught me and my two older brothers, demanded, that we respect ourselves. What we in turn learned was, we were then better able to respect others.”
Matthew, 44, also thanked his cast mates, including Jared Leto, who earlier in the night won Best Supporting Actor for his role in the same movie.
He said: “Thank you to the other nominees, all these performances were impeccable in my opinion. I didn’t see a false note anywhere.
I want to thank Jean-Marc Vallée, our director. I want to thank Jared Leto and Jennifer Garner, who I worked with daily.”