In Hollywood, it's hard to find someone with teeth that aren't stark white, perfectly straight, and impossibly shiny. Thanks to the wonders of veneers, even when celebrities enter the spotlight with a few crooked teeth or gaps, it's only a matter of months until their smiles turn into the kind of dental perfection now synonymous with celebrity. So when an actor is asked to play a character who's neither famous nor armed with a bank account that'd make veneers a possibility, wearing prosthetic teeth is often essential.
Patricia Arquette, who had to completely transform her appearance to play Tilly Mitchell in the Showtime mini-series Escape at Dannemora, knows this well. And at the Golden Globes, where she won the award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series for that role, she made a point to thank the people behind her physical transformation, while also giving a shout-out to her own, in her words, already "fucked-up teeth."
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In a speech that was bleeped not once but twice, Arquette thanked everyone who helped her put in her contacts as well as all those fake teeth, quipping: "How many fucked-up teeth does a person need?" And then: "I mean, I was born with fucked-up teeth!"
People on Twitter were thrilled, thanking her for the reference and celebrating her refusal to conform to Hollywood beauty standards.
“I was born with fucked up teeth!” Patricia Arquette making me feel seen
— Debbie O (@DebbieOE) January 7, 2019
lol at patricia arquette thanking her teeth person like same, girl, same #goldenglobes
— Sanjana Seelam (@SanjanaSeelam) January 7, 2019
I love Patricia arquette and I love her freaking teeth ?
— ?? (@juliadreambb) January 7, 2019
As a few people on Twitter noticed, this year's Globes marked a surprisingly big night for teeth. In addition to Arquette, Rami Malek also won the Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama for playing Freddie Mercury in the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. The actor had to wear some rather massive prosthetic teeth himself, which was the subject of multiple jokes throughout the night.
Between the bad "exhume Freddie Mercury" joke and Patricia Arquette's thank-you speech, the Globes are so far a night about teeth.
— michael musto (@mikeymusto) January 7, 2019
After that bleeped speech, Arquette did apologize, telling the press, "I'm so sorry. You can't take it back, can you? It was an unplanned F-bomb. I'm very sorry though. This is a very elegant occasion."
She then added, "Dental dramas are true, trust me." (Oh, we believe you, girl.) And in an age of celebrity when tiny teeth perfections are as hard to come by as wrinkles and cellulite, Arquette's smile remains not just relatable, but highly refreshing.