Jessie Buckley has won the best actress Oscar for Hamnet at the 98th Academy Awards.
This is Buckley’s first Oscar win, for which she triumphed over a strong field including Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Kate Hudson for Song Sung Blue and Renate Reinsve for Sentimental Value. With her victory, Buckley becomes the first Irish winner of the best actress Oscar, although previous nominees in the category include Saoirse Ronan (for Brooklyn, Lady Bird and Little Women) and Ruth Negga (for Loving).
In Hamnet, Buckley, 36, plays Agnes Shakespeare, the wife of playwright William (played by Paul Mescal). It is an adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, directed by Chloé Zhao.
“Thank you to the incredible women that I stand beside,” she said. “I am inspired by your art and your heart, and I want to work with every single one of you.”
Buckley reported that Ireland had paid for flights for her family to be with her, and then thanked her father for “teaching us to dream and to never be defined by expectation to carry from your own passion”.
She then thanked her partner, Fred, saying: “I love you, man. I love you. You’re the most incredible dad. You’re my best friend and I want to have 20,000 more babies with you.”
Buckley became pregnant with her daughter, Isla, a week after filming on Hamnet ended. Now eight months old, “with absolutely no idea what’s going on … and probably dreaming of milk”, she addressed her daughter, saying: “This is kind of a big deal.”
She added: “I love you and I love being your mum and I can’t wait to discover life beside you.” Addressing Zhao and O’Farrell, whose novel was adapted, Buckley said that getting beneath the skin of the character she played in the film, and the “journey to understand the capacity of a mother of love is the greatest collision of my life”.
Buckley concluded: “It’s Mother’s Day in the UK today. So I would like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart. We all come from a lineage of women who continued to create against all odds. Thank you for recognising me in this role. This is the greatest honour. I can’t even believe it.”
Buckley had been Oscar-nominated once before, for best supporting actress for The Lost Daughter, and this year has dominated the awards circuit, winning best actress awards at the Baftas, Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice and Actor awards.
One small wobble came after Buckley suggested that she disliked cats after her then boyfriend’s pets defecated on her pillow in what she took to be an act of jealousy.
Speaking on a US chatshow the following day, Buckley sought to distance herself from the remarks, saying: “I am a lover of cats. I woke up this morning [thinking]: does the world think that I really don’t love cats? And it’s really weighed on me all day. I felt sick.”
