Actress Marlee Matlin urges UO grads (including her daughter) to ‘be yourself’

Actress Marlee Matlin delivered a rousing speech at the University of Oregon’s Autzen Stadium for the 2026 commencement ceremony, challenging new graduates to stick true to themselves as they enter postcollege life.

“Don’t let people tell you who you are,” said the award-winning actress, a pioneer in on-screen representation for people with disabilities. 

Matlin, who is deaf, spoke to the crowd via American Sign Language with the aid of an interpreter, and started her speech by thanking the university for the accessibility tools that helped her address the class of 2026.

Though she’s not a Duck herself, Matlin, wearing a green pantsuit with a yellow shirt, has a personal connection to UO. The audience included her 22-year-old daughter, Isabelle Grandalski, who is graduating of the university’s School of Journalism and Communications and is a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.

Matlin took a moment at the top of the speech to wish her daughter congratulations before launching into the main themes of her speech: courage and authenticity in the face of overwhelming expectation.  

“Growing up as a person who happens to be deaf, people often made assumptions about me,” she said, before talking about other people telling her what her limits were “supposed” to be. “When enough people tell you a story about yourself, you can start to believe it, too.”

Matlin’s education, as she told the audience, was an unusual one. She won an Academy Award at 21 years old for her film debut in the 1986 movie “Children of a Lesser God,” never attending a formal college. That was the same year that Matlin, now 60, said she had to get sober, an experience she shared with the commencement audience to a round of applause. 

“Even some people who were deaf assumed I was the answer to solving everything that had to do with removing barriers,” she said. “But winning an Oscar at the age of 21—  though incredible as it was — did not mean that I was instantly going to be fearless or confident all the time. In fact, at times it made things harder, because suddenly there was pressure.”

During one point in the speech, she led the graduates through a message in American Sign Language that she said was her “simple formula” that has carried her through the years: “Courage plus dreams equals success.” 

“It’s not certainty plus dreams,” she added. “It’s not perfection plus dreams. It’s courage plus dreams.” 

Amid her final thoughts for graduates, she had some practical, self-deprecating advice for postgraduate life. 

“One, be yourself. Two, don’t let the room tell your story for you. Three, and as I said before, make your bed and make sure to pay your taxes.” she said, a lighthearted reference to her $50,000 tax bill that made headlines in 2011. “Seriously. Mom and Dad are right about that.”

She closed with a simple note, spoken aloud without the interpreter: “Go Ducks!” 

Transcript of Matlin’s speech 

Before we begin, I want to acknowledge my gratitude to the university for providing a great access of both interpreters and captioning on the screen.

Good morning to the graduates, the families, and everybody here celebrating the class of 2026 at the University of Oregon. And let me first take a moment to say that, though I make my home in California, I was born and raised in Chicago, and as such I am a big huge sports fan, so I have to say this. Congratulations to Dillon Thieneman, recently selected 25th overall in the first round of the 2026 NFL draft, following a standout career here at the University of Oregon, in fact, congratulations go out to the other six players drafted to the NFL, as well as the other graduates drafted to professional sports teams.

I know that many of you are going pro off the field as well, whether you have a PR internship, a job in a lab, or are headed to grad school. Congratulations to you all, and as you heard, to my daughter Isabelle, my dear daughter, sitting amongst you all over there, your dad and I and your brothers and sisters, trust you will find something out there that you will excel at. We are so very proud of you.

In any case, I am really honored to be with you here, all of you today now. I should probably admit right away that I never went to college in the traditional sense of the word. I never lived in a dorm, never ran across campus trying to get to class on time, never wrote a paper at 2 in the morning while living on caffeine or maybe making bad decisions, but I think you’d agree that life has a way of teaching all of us, whether it happens in a classroom or not, and for me that meant learning a few things that I wish someone had told me when I was your age. 

One of the biggest things was, don’t let people tell you who you are, because once you leave here, people are going to have opinions about you almost immediately. They’ll tell you what success is supposed to look like, they’ll tell you what job you should have, what kind of life you should want, how fast you should be moving, what kind of person they think you are, and if you’re not careful, you can start living according to everybody else’s expectations instead of your own truth. And I know exactly what that feels like, because growing up as a person who happened to be deaf, people often made assumptions about me, even before I had a chance to introduce myself. Some assumed I wasn’t capable, others assumed they already understood what my life would be like and what my limits were supposed to be, and when enough people tell you a story about yourself, you can start believing it too. 

But eventually I realized something really important. People may have opinions about you, but they do not get to define you. You do. You do. That lesson became even more important when my acting career took off suddenly. People thought that they knew everything about me because they’d see me on a screen or read about me in a magazine or on social media. Even some people who were deaf assumed I was the answer to solving everything that had to do with removing barriers, but winning an Oscar at the age of 21—  though incredible as it was — did not mean that I was instantly going to be fearless or confident all the time. In fact, at times it made things harder, because suddenly there was pressure. Well, first I had to get sober. OK, I did that. Then 39 years, by the way, 39 years sober. [Applause.] Thank you.

Then there was the pressure to keep proving myself, pressure to live up to expectations, pressure to become whatever the version the world wanted to see me do next. Then there were moments that I could have just lost myself trying to make everybody else comfortable. But over time, and with the support of my family and friends, I learned the most important thing that you can do in life is to be genuine, not perfect, because nobody is perfect, but genuine, particularly if you can connect with honesty and humanity, because you see we connect with each other when we are comfortable enough to be ourselves, and I know that it’s not always easy to do that.

Right now, we live in a world where everybody seems to be comparing themselves to everyone else. People are constantly posting about the most trivial things in their lives, while constantly quietly struggling behind the scenes, but I believe that the people who really make a difference aren’t the people trying hardest to fit in, it’s the people willing to be themselves, even when life feels uncomfortable, and that takes courage for me. 

Courage is a huge part of how I look at life. In fact, I have a simple formula that I have carried with me for years, but just to make the point come across to you even stronger, I want you, all of you, all of you to join me with me to make sure this formula comes through loud and clear, and I’m talking to everyone in this stadium, all of you, so whatever you have in your hands, put it down and sign with me. 

OK? You ready? You ready? [While signing each word]: Courage, dreams, success. OK, you can stop signing now. Courage plus dreams equals success. It’s not certainty plus dreams, it’s not perfection plus dreams, it’s courage plus dreams. It is true that dreams are great, but they don’t mean much if you’re too afraid to go after them, and adding some courage is what gets you to take the chance. Courage is applying for the job you’re not sure you’re going to get. Courage is starting over when something isn’t working anymore. Courage is asking for help. Courage is accepting that sometimes you are wrong, and courage is getting back up after you fail, or when life knocks you down. And trust me, life will knock you down sometimes. Some of you already know that. Maybe you have dealt with stress, anxiety, family problems, financial pressure, loneliness, or uncertainty about what comes next.

Maybe you’ve lost a friend in the most unexpected ways, as we did with your classmate Andrew Johnson. (Johnson was the vice president of the UO Public Speaking Club, which shared the news of his death in January.) He should be sitting with you celebrating today, but I am so thrilled that he is receiving his degree posthumously, which he so richly deserves. Love to the family.

Maybe there were times when you looked around and thought that everyone else had it figured out, except you, but remember, nobody has it figured out. In fact, most of us are making it up as we go along, hoping we look confident while we’re doing it. That’s why empathy matters so much. That’s why a smile while looking at someone in the eyes matters so much. The world has enough people trying to be the loudest person in the room, but what we need are more people who really actually listen, people who care about each other, people who can disagree without losing their humanity. 

As my mentor, the actor Henry Winkler, recently reminded graduates in another ceremony, empathy isn’t weakness, empathy takes strength. It’s easy to judge people, but it’s harder to understand them, and what I learned from him, and what I’ve seen here from all my visits and encounters here in this beautiful campus. All of you understand better than what people sometimes give you credit for. 

Now, speaking about this campus, I feel I should say something final in my words about the wonderful Duck spirit. OK, so I’m ready. You know what I love about ducks is that they look calm on the surface, just as President (John Karl) Scholz just recently said underneath they’re paddling like crazy, and honestly, that’s what being an adult feels like to me. When you leave here, you’re definitely going to have moments when you look completely composed on the outside while inside you’re thinking I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, but that’s OK.

The goal isn’t to have everything figured out all the time. The goal is to keep moving forward, to persevere like I have tattooed right here, to be a warrior like I have tattooed here. (Matlin has the words “Perservere” and “Warrior” tattooed on either wrist.) 

Ducks don’t travel alone, as you heard, they move together, they support each other, they take turns leading. That’s important too, because life can be so much better when you build a life with good people around you and stay connected to your community. Help people when you can, let people help you when you need it. 

So, as you leave here today, I hope you can remember a few things: one, be yourself when it’s hard; two, don’t let the world tell your story for you; and three, as I said before, make your bed and make sure to pay your taxes. Seriously, Mom and Dad are right about that. And lastly, and most importantly, lead with empathy. Have the courage to go after the life that you really want, not just the life that looks impressive to other people. And when things get difficult, because they will, keep on paddling. Congratulations to the Class of 2026. We are watching you. We are wishing you nothing but wonderful things.

Go Ducks!