Apparently, this has become
Hollywood jargon for making an overtly
tearful acceptance speech at the
Oscars.
Gwyneth Paltrow, Gawd love 'er, started the craze when she got Best Actress for Shakespeare in Love... by the time Julia Roberts jumped on the bandwagon after Erin Brockovich, doing a Paltrow was an accepted tactic.
Interesting note: you never see the poeple who get Best Screenplay or Best Original Score doing this. Is it that actors (and actresses, if you want to be pernickety) naturally overdo reactions like this? Is that why they're actors? Or is it that the whole thing is fake, and actors are naturally better at acting?
Interesting note 2: Gywneth Paltrow keeps that Oscar hidden in her basement; she can't bear to look at it after seeing herself do the original Paltrow.
And a massive thanks to everyone (Jet-Poop, generic-man, and liveforever among them) who corrected my astronomical brainfart in attributing Julia Roberts' Oscar to Miss Congeniality. I don't know what came over me. I'm going to go and have a lie down now.