Jessie Buckley wins best actress at Oscars 2026 for ‘Hamnet’

Jessie Buckley pulled off a sweep of the 2026 awards season by winning best actress at the 2026 Oscars for her role in “Hamnet.”

Buckley, 36, took home the honor for her highly emotional turn as bereaved mother Agnes Shakespeare, the wife of the legendary playwright William Shakespeare (played by Paul Mescal, who was infamously snubbed in the best actor category), in Chloé Zhao’s epic period drama.

She previously garnered victories at the Critics Choice, Golden Globe, SAG Actor Awards, and BAFTAs for the role, but failed to secure a win at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, where Rose Byrne won for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”

Nonetheless, Buckley remained highly favored for the Academy Award throughout the 2026 awards season.

At Sunday’s ceremony in Los Angeles — the crown jewel of the entertainment industry’s awards circuit — Buckley faced off against a formidable list of competitors.

Rose Byrne for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” Renate Reinsve for “Sentimental Value,” Emma Stone for “Bugonia,” and Kate Hudson for “Song Sung Blue,” were all nominated alongside Buckley for best actress.

The mother of one — who found out she was expecting her first child, a daughter, with husband Freddie after wrapping “Hamnet” — spoke out about what the intense role had taught her about motherhood.

“The thing that this story offered me, that brought me into this next chapter of my life as a mother was tenderness,” she said earlier this month, per NPR.

“A mother’s tenderness is ferocious. To love, to birth is no joke. To be born is no joke,” she continued.

“And the minute something’s born into the world, you’re always in the precipice of life and death. That’s our path. … I wanted to be a mother so much that that overrode the thought of being afraid of it.”

“The Bride!” actress also explained how the story — which is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel — had set her character apart from the shadow of William Shakespeare.

“What Maggie O’Farrell so brilliantly did, not just with Agnes and Shakespeare’s wife, but also with Hamnet, their son, was to bring these people … and give them status beside this great man. … [And] give the full landscape of what it is to be a woman,” she shared.

Buckley confessed that she drew from her “imagination” for scenes of unimaginable grieving over the death of her character’s 11-year-old son, Hamnet — scenes that undoubtedly weighed heavily in her victory.

“The death of a child is unfathomable,” she explained. “I don’t know where it begins and ends. Out of utter respect, I tried to touch an imaginary truth of it in our story as best I could, but there’s no way to define that kind of grief.”

She added, “I’m sure it’s different for so many people. And in that moment, all I had was my imagination but also this relationship that was right in front of me with this little boy and that’s what came out of that.”