Frances McDormand champions ‘inclusion riders’ during her Best Actress speech

Frances McDormand won the 2018 Oscar for Actress in a Leading Role for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. During her acceptance speech, she set her Oscar statuette down on the floor beside her, then commanded all the other women nominees in the room to stand up in solidarity.

“If I could have all the women stand up with me in this moment,” she said, waving them to their feet. “Look around, everybody, look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell, and we all have projects we need to finance.”

She encouraged people to discuss future women-centric projects seriously during meetings, rather than during drinks tonight. “I have two words to leave with you tonight: inclusion rider,” she said. The words refer to actors putting diversity requirements into their contracts about the other crew and actors’ positions for a film they choose to act in.

McDormand had previously won the Best Actress award for her work in Fargo. This was her fifth nomination in the category. The other nominees in her category were Meryl Streep in The Post, Margot Robbie in I, Tonya, Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water, and Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird.