3 minute readrundown
Jessie Buckley won the Best Actress Oscar tonight for her performance in Hamnet. She was at the forefront of the awards ceremony, following her wins in the Golden Globe, Critics Choice, BAFTA and Best Actor categories. During her speech, she discussed the power of motherhood and thanked her husband, daughter, and several cast and crew members.
Jessie Buckley has officially won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in Hamnet. This milestone win comes after she also won in similar categories at the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice Awards, BAFTA and Best Actor. In her Oscars speech, Buckley touched on what the project had taught her about motherhood, thanked her eight-month-old daughter and told her husband Freddie that she hoped to have “20,000 more babies” if possible.
Read her speech word for word below.
Thank you very much. This…this is really something. Thank you to the amazing women who are by my side. I am inspired by your art and your hearts and would love to work with each of you. To the producers who built this ship for us, and to my lifelong shipmates: Hilda, Jessica, Lindsey, and Zach, none of this would be possible without you. My family, my Irish family, they’re all here. Mom and Dad, thank you for teaching us to dream, to never get bogged down by expectations, and to carve out our passions. You, Fred, I love you. I love you; you are the most amazing dad. You are my best friend and I want to have 20,000 more babies with you. i will do it! And my 8-month-old daughter Isla has no idea what’s going on and is probably dreaming about milk, which is kind of a big deal. I love you and love being your mother, and I can’t wait to discover life next to you. Chloe (Chao) and Maggie (O’Farrell, the film’s screenwriter), the journey of getting to know these incandescent women and understanding a mother’s capacity for love, was the biggest conflict of my life. Today is Mother’s Day in the UK, so I would like to dedicate this song to the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart. We all belong to a lineage of women who continue to create despite all odds. Thank you for recognizing me in this role. This is the greatest honor. I can’t believe it.
Watch her speech below.
At the Actor Awards ceremony earlier this month, Buckley accepted the award for Best Female Actor and expressed her gratitude to the performing community at the venue for shaping her. “I want to take a moment to look at all these incredible and inspiring faces and souls in front of me,” she began her speech. “I have been profoundly changed by so many people in this room and beyond. What a way to spend my life standing alongside smart and bold friends who put their hearts into their work and show their hearts! Thank you.”
She then singled out her Hamnet co-star Emily Watson, admitting that Watson’s work in 1996’s Breaking the Waves inspired her own acting ambitions.
“When I saw ‘Breaking the Waves,’ I whispered to myself that this is what I wanted to do. Being able to share that scene with you in Hamnet is something I will cherish forever,” she said. “Your unbridled imagination, brave, unfettered femininity, and fierce kindness are a guiding light for me. And the best advice you always give me is to always return to the wellspring of just being human. Ground zero, baby. You are the most authentic of all. I love and cherish being a part of this community, and I hope to continue to give something meaningful back. Thank you. This is such an honor.”
Buckley is one of ELLE magazine’s 2025 Women in Hollywood honorees and spoke about other actresses who have influenced her in an interview. “Frances McDormand, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, and Laura Dern,” she listed. “Their performances are very fulfilling. They’re not playing something to appeal to. They’re playing a life that’s complex and rich and uncomfortable and challenging and provocative. What I learned from them is to be ruthless in knowing yourself and bringing the vitality of being a woman to the surface.”
Additional reporting by Starr Bowenbank.
