Academy Award-winning actress Octavia Spencer received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday, with luminaries such as Will Ferrell and Allison Janney attending.
The ceremony in front of Ballet Hollywood also was attended by Aubie the Tiger, the mascot of Spencer’s alma mater, Auburn University, AL.com reported. Fellow actors Viola Davis, Julius Tennon and Mekhi Pfifer and director Tate Taylor were also on hand, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The star was the 2,742nd awarded since the completion of the Walk of Fame in 1961, KCBS-TV reported.
“To be forever cemented in the mythology of this city and the film industry is an amazing honor,” Spencer said during the ceremony. “It took me a minute to absorb the profundity of this moment, the culmination of my dreams realized, hard work rewarded after a fair but healthy amount of failure and rejection.”
Spencer, 52, a native of Montgomery, Alabama, was nominated for three Oscars and took home a statuette in 2012 as best supporting actress in the 2011 film “The Help,” where she played the role of Minnie Jackson, a maid in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963.
Spencer also received Oscar nominations for best supporting actress in “Hidden Figures” and “The Shape of Winter.” She was the first Black actress to receive Academy Award nominations in back-to-back years, according to KCBS.
The actress made her film debut as Sandra Bullock’s nurse in 1996′s “A Time to Kill.”
“She’s a real human. A good human. A safe human,” Bullock told Variety. “A person who comes into the room with such integrity and a joy for life that it makes you want to try harder at everything … because she is!”
Ferrell co-stars with Spencer in “Spirited,” Apple TV+’s musical comedy that retells the classic tale “A Christmas Carol,” KCBS reported.
As Ferrell began speaking, a man on the street began loudly heckling the event, the Times reported.
The “Anchorman” star shut the heckler down quickly.
“Not on Octavia’s day!” Ferrell shouted. “Keep it moving. Keep it moving. The wax museum’s down there. That thing is wide open.”
Janney and Spencer appeared together in “The Help.” They met at a party in 1999.
“I heard this infectious laughter rising above the crowd,” Janney told Variety. “It was Octavia. She was holding court, telling stories about horrible auditioning experiences and making everyone laugh, including herself! Her laughter was infectious, and her spirit was super warm and effervescent and it was then I decided I had to be friends with her. Everything was just more fun when Octavia was around.
“We became very close friends sharing our disappointments, our dreams and our hopes. We prayed for parts we never got, but her humor always lifted us above the disappointment.”
Spencer’s other film credits include “Fruitvale Station,” `The Shack, “Luce,” “Ma,” “The Witches,” “Halloween II,” “Smashed,” “Snowpiercer,” “Get on Up,” “Insurgent,” “Allegiant,” “Gifted,” “Instant Family,” “Coach Carter,” “Being John Malkovich,” “Bad Santa” and its sequel “Bad Santa 2″ and “Onward.”