Oscars 2015: Why Pawel Pawlikowski Talked Through the Play-Off Music

The winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film explains his speech.

ByABC News
February 22, 2015, 10:35 PM
Pawel Pawlikowski accepts the Best Foreign Language Film Award for "Ida" onstage during the 87th Annual Academy Awards at Dolby Theatre on Feb. 22, 2015 in Hollywood, California.
Pawel Pawlikowski accepts the Best Foreign Language Film Award for "Ida" onstage during the 87th Annual Academy Awards at Dolby Theatre on Feb. 22, 2015 in Hollywood, California.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images

— -- While accepting the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film, Pawel Pawlikowski ignored the music that played him off-stage.

He had a good reason: The director, who rushed to thank his late wife and parents as his time on-stage wound down, wanted to talk more about his family.

"I was thinking about my kids who were watching -- hopefully they were watching," he told reporters backstage. "What I wanted to say was this is great and wonderful but my kids are the most important thing in life."

"Ida," the film for which Pawlikowski was honored, was the first win for Poland. However, had Pawlikowski had been able to say all that he wanted to say, he joked that the speech would have been distinctly American.

"I was about to say this kids thing, which Americans would've loved!" he said. "But I never got time to."

Until now.