‘Tis the season for university commencement speeches, i.e. primetime for seasoned celebrities to get up on a podium in front of graduating students and talk about themselves for anywhere between 15 to 30 minutes.
But really, out of all the narcissistic things we’ve seen from actors — and directors, and writers and even politicians — we’ll let this one slide.
From Oliver Stone to Spike Lee, Lin-Manuel Miranda to Matt Damon, Michelle Obama to Steven Spielberg, these stars dug deep into their own repertoire of life experiences to pay it forward. tabloid! collects their weirdest, funniest and most inspiring pieces of advice, just in case you need a little boost to follow your dreams.
Oliver Stone
University of Connecticut (May 7)
Oliver Stone didn’t hold back any punches against an infamous American political figure — but surprisingly it wasn’t Donald Trump. The Scarface writer went to Yale with two Olympic gold medallists and George W. Bush Jr, who was known for his more… exuberant days at university.
“Mr Bush could get C’s and party and get through it all, and with a pedigree, he could become president,” Stone said.
In comparison, Stone had “failed every single one of my courses. That’s pretty hard to do — four zeroes out of four. Dad was pissed. Some nine thousand down the drain, no tax deduction here. And what would I do for the rest of my life? That’s the big question. He expected me to go to Wall Street, as he [had] … Sort of an idiot son, like Bush.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda
University of Pennsylvania (May 16)
“My dear, terrified graduates: you are about to enter the most uncertain and thrilling period of your lives. The stories you are about to live are the ones you will be telling your children and grandchildren and therapists.”
Wise words from Lin-Manuel Miranda, writer of the Tony and Pulitzer-winning Broadway play Hamilton, in his hometown of Pennsylvania. A writer through and through, he spoke about the daily ritual of story-telling.
“This act of choosing — the stories we tell versus the stories we leave out — will reverberate across the rest of your life. Don’t believe me? Think about how you celebrated this senior week, and contrast that with the version you shared with the parents and grandparents sitting behind you. Penn, don’t front. You’re a Playboy Magazine ranked party school — you know you did things this week that you’re never mentioning again.”
Spike Lee
Johns Hopkins University (May 18)
“People, we are at a very crucial moment in the history of the United States of America,” said the ever-political director Spike Lee, joining the long list of celebrities to call out Trump — and corrupt lawmakers — during their commencement speeches.
“It’s up to the graduating class of 2016 to make a better world for the 99 per cent who are daily being hornswoggled, hoodwinked, duped and scorned, double-crossed, incarcerated, profiled, starved, mis-educated, used and abused and even shot down on our streets.
“The USA is a very diverse nation. This is one of the many things that makes us great despite the legacy of the genocide of its native people and slavery. No matter how one might wish it to be otherwise, we are not making America great again by going back to Eisenhower, Jim Crow, firehouses, German Shepherds and Leave It to Beaver.”
Hank Azaria
Tufts University (May 22)
“My academic career is not why I’m standing before you today. Let’s face it, it’s because I’ve been on The Simpsons for at least five years longer than 95 per cent of the graduating class has been alive,” joked character actor Hank Azaria.
“I’m not suggesting that you ignore the rules of society or the laws of common sense or the actual law or textbooks or manuals or your teachers or your advisors or the internet or all the other sources that are happy to tell you the right and wrong way to go about doing almost everything. Just please be honest with yourself about what you think and how you feel about all of that, what you like and dislike, what angers you or scares you or saddens you or inspires you or delights you. Those feelings are called your instincts, and you ignore them at your own peril.”
Steven Spielberg
Harvard University (May 26)
“What you choose to do next is what we call in the movies the ‘character-defining moment.’ Now, these are moments you’re very familiar with, like in the last Star Wars: The Force Awakens, when Rey realises the force is with her,” said director Steven Spielberg.
It took him 37 years to complete his university degree at Harvard — but first, he learned to listen to himself, and not to his parents, teachers and employers.
“At first, the internal voice I needed to listen to was hardly audible, and it was hardly noticeable — kind of like me in high school. But then I started paying more attention, and my intuition kicked in,” said Spielberg. And I want to be clear that your intuition is different from your conscience. They work in tandem, but here’s the distinction: Your conscience shouts, ‘here’s what you should do,’ while your intuition whispers, ‘here’s what you could do.’ Listen to that voice that tells you what you could do. Nothing will define your character more than that.”
Michelle Obama
City College of New York (June 3)
Michelle Obama’s commencement speech at City College of New York was a political statement as she rooted for diversity and warned against hatemongering — also taking a dig at Trump.
“I have seen how leaders who rule by intimidation — leaders who demonise and dehumanise entire groups of people — often do so because they have nothing else to offer. And I have seen how places that stifle the voices and dismiss the potential of their citizens are diminished; how they are less vital, less hopeful, less free. Graduates, that is not who we are. That is not what this country stands for.”
Matt Damon
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (June 3)
“For all the amazing successes I’ve been lucky to share in, few things have shaped me more than the auditions that Ben [Affleck] and I used to do as young actors, where we would get on a bus, show up in New York, wait for our turn, cry our hearts out for a scene, and then be told, ‘OK, thanks.’ Meaning: game over. We used to call it ‘being OK thanksed’,” quipped Bostonian actor Matt Damon.
The 45-year-old mostly talked about Affleck, his childhood friend, but he also touched on Simulation Theory — the idea that we could all be living in a ‘giant computer game’ run by a smarter civilisation.
“Well, it got me to thinking: What if this — all of this — is a simulation? I mean, it’s a crazy idea, but what if it is? And if there are multiple simulations, how come we’re in the one where Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee? Can we, like, transfer to a different one?”
Seth Meyers
Northwestern University (June 17)
“You will leave here with knowledge and a diploma, but what will endure the longest is your friends,” said late-night talk show host Seth Meyers.
“I am so close to the people I went to Northwestern with, and I can tell you it is great to be 42 and still be friends with the people you knew when you were 18. So today is the day to look around at your group of friends and identify the people who you want to be a part of the rest of your lives.
“Also, while you’re at it, look around and identify the friend that’s kind of a dud. Because today is as good a time as any to cut ties. And trust me, every group of college friends has a dud. If you’re looking around right now saying, ‘Not my group of friends,’ that’s probably because you’re the dud.”
On a more serious note, he reached out to the millennials in the crowd who get a lot of undeserved flak.
“Don’t let older generations blame you for what they see as the problems of the world. You’re too young for any of this to be your fault. You have a good decade before any of this is on you, so my only advice is — use those 10 years well.”
