Rachel McAdams Breaks Down Crying During A Very Emotional Speech At Her Walk Of Fame Ceremony In LA

Rachel McAdams, stayin' hot! Wow, thank you. I am so overcome by the generosity here today. I'd like to thank Disney and 20th Century Studios and Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Thank you, Janelle, Steve, for your kind words. And thank you to Donald Gleeson, Dylan O'Brien, and Sam Raimi, the master. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives to be here today. Sam and Dylan, I saw that you have a new movie coming out, and I'm real excited to see it. Still in character. Okay, so, you are three of the hardest-working and kindest people in Hollywood. Donal, you are easily one of the loveliest fake husbands I have ever had. Dylan, you have been, without a doubt, the best, worst boss I have ever had. And Sam, you are definitely the nicest person to have ever thrown buckets of blood straight in my moosh. Your words. You were grinning both paternally and maniacally every time you did it, which is a super confusing feeling. But that's Hollywood, right? So, speaking of Hollywood, when I was about eight years old, growing up in tiny little St. Thomas, Canada, I wrote my parents a very desperate letter asking them to figure out how to fulfill my greatest dream, to be on Ed McMahon's Star Search. They were, of course, incredibly supportive. I do want to freeze time for a second, because you only get a few of these moments in life, to thank you on this stage for everything. It's because of you, and the love you gave us, and the beautiful childhood you gave us, and for believing in me long before I could grasp how to believe in myself. I love you so much. Thank you. Okay, so back to Ed McMahon's impossibly high standards for tiny children. So while my parents were incredibly supportive, they were also incredibly confused by this request of mine, because I couldn't dance. I couldn't sing. I couldn't twirl a baton. I couldn't put my legs behind my head. I couldn't do anything, really, at eight. I figure skated. That's what I could do, but there wasn't a figure skating category. So, I had none of the skills that Star Search was searching for. So as much as I wanted to be a little star for Ed McMahon, eight-year-old me let that dream fly out the window. Then a few years later, my parents, thank you once again, let me join a children's theater camp, and that's where I found my real tribe, and my true dream. I'm very lucky to have one of my fellow camp thespians here today. My rider dies. It feels like yesterday we were playing impish fairies, murderous juvenile delinquents, aging prostitutes, and tragic Shakespearean men together. It was one of the most joyful times of my life, so much so that theater camp turned into theater college, because that's a good bet. I'm staying employed. But it was just as magical a place. There I found teachers, fellow students, a larger tribe, a group of dreamers that made my life feel so very alive, including my dear friend and great collaborator, Duane Murray, a gift from heaven, my greatest collaborator, and I cannot imagine the terrible mistakes I would have made in my career and the many roles I took on, but not for your beautiful guidance and mentorship. Thank you so much. I would like to make a special shout out to my manager, Shelley Browning, the hardest working woman in Hollywood. You changed the trajectory of my life, inviting me to Hollywood based on one tiny little tape. You let me stay in your guest room for months on end so I didn't have to stay at the Oakwood Apartments, and printed countless MapQuest maps for me to get to auditions since I was without a cell phone, a GPS, or any real sense of direction. It's an affliction I still suffer from, but you're still helping me out with that. Thank you. You are my ways now. Thank you for fighting the good fight for me for the last 20 plus years. What all those experiences and all of these people made me realize is I didn't actually need to be a star. What I needed to be was a working actor. And for the past 25 plus years, I've been very lucky to do that. And for that, I am so, so very grateful and so fortunate. And lastly, I'd like to thank the stars up above, down here, the legendary working actors who I was given the great gift to learn from, the ones who are no longer with us. To name a few, the pioneering Jenna Rollins, the prolific Sam Shepard, and my beloved Diane Keaton, who took me under her wing like I was her own daughter. She taught me that no matter how long you've been doing this, you have to leave everything you've got on the table. Each performance, you must muster up as much love as you possibly can. And then you'll only feel like a dumb, dumb idiot half the time in life. And to all my own stars down here, to my colleagues, my dear friends, the rest of my family who came from far and wide to be with me today, from every chapter of my life, who've always kept my feet firmly planted on the ground and never let me float too far out of orbit. It seems silly to just have my name on here. So I share this little piece of Earth with all of you. To Jamie, my North Star, Kaylee, my other North Star, thank you for being such a great team and keeping me pleasant. Love you all so much. Thank you so much.