Sarah Paulson's 'Surreal' Golden Globe Award 'Was for Marcia'

— -- Actress Sarah Paulson emphasized in a backstage interview Sunday night that the Golden Globe award she had just won “was for Marcia,” referring to the real-life prosecutor Paulson portrayed last year in “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story."

Paulson even honored Marcia Clark in her acceptance speech, but she drove the point home later in the interview with “Good Morning America” anchor Lara Spencer.

"I feel like it's somehow sacrilegious just to talk about wanting to win and for me, as an actor, I've dreamt about doing this since I was a tiny child,” Paulson, 42, told Spencer. “So these moments, these things I used to watch on TV, the idea that I could be there and this could happen to me is like a true 'pinch me' moment.

“So, of course I want to win, but for this particular one, it was for Marcia. I wanted it for her more than anything because ... this is a communication that she has been validated and there has been a new awareness of who she was and who she is and that makes me enormously proud."

Paulson, who won for actress in a television mini-series or movie, said she can understand why her role as Clark was so well-received.

"[I] think that there is nothing more powerful than everyone having an idea about what something was going to be and then having it completely turned on its head and audiences ... then taking the moment to go, 'I feel so terrible about it,'" Paulson said. "It says a lot about human beings and their ability to recognize mistake."

She added: "Collectively I've had an enormous amount of people come up to me and say, 'I had no idea. We treated her [Clark] terribly and I feel so badly that I misjudged that.' And so for that, I feel incredibly proud."

This year's nomination was a third for Paulson, who described Sunday night's win as "surreal."

"[I]t doesn't feel real," she said. "I watched this show as a kid I hate to say it ... but I dreamt about these kind of things. I had other dreams that weren't about winning awards. But this is pretty exciting."