Oscars 2026: Jessie Buckley becomes first Irish ‘Best Actress’ winner
Jessie Buckley has made history at the Oscars by becoming the first-ever Irish performer to win ‘Best Actress’ for her role in Hamnet.
Buckley won the coveted award after a clean sweep throughout the rest of this year’s award season, for her turn as Agnes Shakespeare opposite Paul Mescal.
She beat out the other nominees in the category to the prize, which consisted of Rose Byrne, Kate Hudson, Renate Reinsve, and Emma Stone.
Her win came after she was previously nominated for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ in 2022, ultimately losing on the night to Ariana DeBose in West Side Story.
The ‘Best Actress’ win comes as the pinnacle of Buckley’s career so far, having previously won the same prize at the Baftas, Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice, and Actor Awards, among others.
As such, she was widely considered the frontrunner for the Oscar this year, having opened up last week about how acting became her saviour during her younger years, after she battled an eating disorder and depression.
However, her most recent film, The Bride with Christian Bale, has not received the same critically acclaimed reception, with the response to the horror movie largely being negative.
Speaking of Buckley’s character Agnes, she added: “Agnes is an overly archetypal earthbound mother figure, in contact with some witchy, spiritual heritage, which spurs her to insist on giving birth in the forest alone, spreading out across the roots and the mud as she wails.”
It’s never ideal for the neutrals when a race becomes so predictable so far ahead of time, but having barrelled through the competition throughout awards season, ‘Best Actress’ has always had Buckley’s name on it.
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