Golden Globes 2026: Rose Byrne wins ‘Best Female Actor – Musical or Comedy’
At the 83rd annual Golden Globes, Rose Byrne has taken home the award for ‘Best Female Actor – Musical or Comedy’ for her brilliantly complex performance in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
Mary Bronstein’s latest feature was one of the standouts of the 2025 film calendar, starring Byrne as a mother on the verge of a nervous breakdown, caring for her child who is suffering from a mysterious illness, dealing with an absent husband, all while a hole slowly swallows up her apartment.
While Bronstein’s direction is fascinating, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You simply wouldn’t work without Byrne as the lead.
That’s more than evident in the number of nominations and accolades that Byrne has garnered throughout this awards season, leading up to the Oscars.
While talking about the film to ELLE, Byrne wrote: “Mothers are both revered and ignored; there’s this duality. It’s so hard to chat about motherhood, because you feel if you’re anything but delighted, there’s a lot of shame around that.”
Elaborating, “The movie is blowing all that up and making you pay attention. You have to acknowledge this woman, even though she’s making terrible choices.”
The other contenders in the ‘Best Female Actor – Musical or Comedy’ category included: Cynthia Erivo, for Wicked: For Good; Amanda Seyfried, for The Testament of Ann Lee; Chase Infiniti, for One Battle After Another, Emma Stone, for Bugonia; Kate Hudson, for Song Sung Blue.
In a four-star review of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Far Out wrote: “The storyline calls for an endless range of emotions, moods, and attitudes, ranging from subtle or unconscious reactions to furious or desperate outbursts, all of them captured perfectly by Byrne in a naturalistic performance that provides a warts-and-all portrait of a well-intentioned parent stretched to her limit.”
Adding, “The camera remains almost claustrophobically focused on Byrne in every scene, forcing the viewer to not only see her emotional state but also to almost drown in it.”
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