Jessie Buckley took a beat to laugh at the absurdity of it all when she won the award for Best Actress for her heartbreaking performance in Hamnet at the 2026 Oscars on Sunday night.
Buckely was awarded her statue by last year’s Best Actress winner, Mikey Madison of Anora.
“Wow. Thank you so much,” Buckley said. Then turned away from the mic to laugh incredulously. “This is really something. Thank you to the incredible women that I stand beside, I’m inspired by your art, and your heart, and I want to work with every single one of you.”
Buckley went to thank “my Irish family, they’re all here, Ireland bought that them flights!”
Buckley also thanked her husband and recently born baby, and, of course, Hamnet writer/director Chloe Zhao, and the chance to play a character where she got to “understand the capacity of a mother’s love.” But the heart of Buckley’s speech came at the end, when she shouted out mothers everywhere.
“It’s Mothers Day in the UK today,” Buckley said. “I would like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart. We all come from a lineage of women, who continue to create against all odds. Thank you for recognizing me in this role, this is the greatest honor, I can’t even believe it.”
This is Buckley’s first Oscar win, but her second nomination, following a nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 2021’s The Lost Daughter.
Hamnet was directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), who co-wrote the script with Maggie O’Farrell. The script was adapted from O’Farrell’s 2020 novel of the same name. Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal star as Agnes and William Shakespeare, who struggle to go on after the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet (played by Jacobi Jupe). Eventually, Shakespeare transformed his pain into his most celebrated work of all time, Hamlet.
Despite Shakespeare’s fame, Hamnet gives his wife the spotlight, and Buckley more than rose to the occasion. She delivered a devastating performance as a grieving mother. If you don’t think you can cry just from watching someone watch something, think again.
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