Sarah Paulson Honors Marcia Clark in Her Golden Globes Speech

2016 was a banner year for Sarah Paulson. She pulled triple duty on American Horror Story: Roanoke with a whopping three screen personas to fit the brief, 10-episode season, and she blew everyone away with her riveting performance as Marcia Clark, the oft-ridiculed prosecutor who tried the O.J. Simpson case and lost both the case and her privacy in The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.

Formidable though her AHS showcase was, it was her turn in The People vs. O.J. Simpson that had the world besotted with Paulson's talents (again) and made her a shoo-in for this win.

Indeed, to the surprise of few, Paulson took home to the 2017 Golden Globe Award for best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, besting Felicity Huffman (American Crime), Riley Keough (The Girlfriend Experience), Charlotte Rampling (London Spy), and Kerry Washington (Confirmation).

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The Marc Jacobs-clad beauty thanked her co-stars ("this merry band of gypsies") as well as the show's creator, Ryan Murphy, saying, "To the man responsible for this and so much in my life, Ryan Murphy ... you changed my life. If there was a single thing I thought I could give you that you didn't already have, it would be at your doorstep every single day 'til the end of time, but in lieu of that all I have is my boundless gratitude. And I love you."

And while Paulson did not thank O.J. Simpson, as host Jimmy Fallon predicted in the opening number, she did thank her real-life counterpart from the show, Marcia Clark, saying, "To the remarkable Marcia Clark, you are an inspiration to me. If I could live my life with a fraction of your wit, integrity, and your unapologetic fierceness, I would be on the road to doing it right."

Paulson was twice nominated before, in 2007 for her work in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and in 2012 for HBO's Game Change.