Excerpts of Sir Sean Connery`s AFI award speeches online

A Steven Spielberg fansite has posted excerpts of speeches given at Sir Sean Connery's AFI Lifetime Achievement Award that took place in Hollywood last month.

STEVEN SPIELBERG:
Rare is the moment when to honor an actor that has captured lightening in a bottle. And rare is the moment when that actor creates a character for me, for you, and for millions of people around the world, people who do not speak the same language, but they share this character, one that inhabits our most impossible dreams and influences what we like to wear (Turnbull & Asser with Rolex watch), what we like to drink (Martinis shaken, not stirred) and what we like to drive (Aston Martin DB5).

His very name is an example of this. His name is Bond. James Bond. And I was a young man of 16 when the first James Bond film opened at a drive in movie theater with theme songs sung by Shirley Bassie, Matt Munro, Nancy Sinatra, Tom Jones and those wonderfully risqué main title sequences. All the Bond girls you can’t say in public [audience laughs]. All the gadgets — that rocket shooting cigarette accurate at 30 feet, you remember that one?

Then there were those evildoers, always seeking world domination. All of this surrounding the man with a license to kill. He played James Bond in seven years across 21 years. Every entrance — a tour de force, every turn of his head — a suggestion of danger, and every glance — never without that twinkle of dry Scottish humor.

Now when George Lucas and I created the Indiana Jones series, it’s no secret that Bond movies were somewhere on our minds. And so when we had to cast Indiana Jones’ dad, I thought who could possible be more adventurous and daring and dangerous and charming and more wily and wonderful than Indiana Jones? Well James Bond, of course! Because the moment Sean Connery introduced himself as Bond, he became the man all men wanted to be, and all women just wanted. So we are here tonight to celebrate a career far beyond Bond. Now is the time — just for a moment — to let that lightning out of the bottle and to honor the man who leaves us both shaken and stirred. We are here, all of us who love movies, to say thank you Sean Connery, for at one time or another, you make all of us want to be you.


GEORGE LUCAS:
I stood here last year as a recipient of this prestigious award, and I stand here tonight as an executive producer and sometimes writer struggling to bring “Indiana Jones 4” to life. [applause] A writer who nearly had a heart attack when I read about your retirement in the newspapers, which leaves me with a rather brilliant, touching story about a father and a son, but without a father for Indiana Jones.

So what to do? Well, the easiest thing would be option one: not to include Indiana’s father. But then I began to think about option two: I could kill your character.

[Graphic shows Henry Jones, Sr. killed in llama stampede. Audience laughs.]

Well, maybe speaking as a producer, I should probably have saved a little money.
[Graphic shows Henry Jones Sr. killed in shower by slipping on a bar of soap. Audience laughs.]

Much as I wouldn’t want to do this, if you truly did retire, we could go to option three, which is to replace you with another actor. Maybe not the wisest thing to try, but what about [graphic of Clint Eastwood on screen behind Lucas], or hey, maybe [graphic of Jack Nicholson]. I don’t know. Who could possibly be tough enough to spank Harrison Ford? [graphic of Condoleezza Rice]

It can’t be done. You’re one of a kind. A man of wisdom and honor and intellect and gravitas. Congratulations Sean!

HARRISON FORD:
Dad? [audience laughs] We did two Indiana Jones movies before Sean joined the family. But Sean did not, does not, just show up and read the lines. He brought ideas to the table — good ideas, about plot and character, about the movie. For those of us who make movies, technically speaking, this is called being a pain in the ass. But for those of us who love movies, that passion, that wisdom is the reason we are here tonight — one of them at least. At some early stage, Sean told Steven and George, ‘Look, I’m his father. Whatever he’s done, I did it first, and I did It better.’ Did he understand the part or what?

Our fathers. We endure them; we’re tested by them. And then, as we grow older, we understand a whole new level of respect and admiration for them. That’s the nature of the relationship between Indiana Jones and his father. And as I stand here before you tonight, older and wiser, it reflects how I’ve come to feel about you, Sean.

Part of the fun of the Indy series is that they hearken back to the old days, older movies, a time when movies were a window onto the world. They took us to new and exciting places, and our guides were the stars of those movies. John Wayne gave us the old West, Jimmy Stewart gave us our town, but you, Sean Connery, you gave us the world. And it all began in Scotland, a home you never left far behind.

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