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Jessie Buckley: Oscars interview
- Serena Trivelloni
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Jessie Buckley in the press room at the 2026 Academy Awards is a ray of light. After her powerhouse performance in Hamnet, she shared what playing a mother means to her on screen and in real life.
Mothers who dream, hope, and fight. Women who endure. Jessie Buckley seems to have lived through them all, the dazzling shades of the human spirit that, this year, after multiple nominations, finally brought her the recognition she deserved.
Excited, radiant, and surrounded by love, she speaks into our microphones with the awareness that she will remember this moment for the rest of her life.
In the same week, her daughter got her first tooth; in just two months, she won both a Golden Globe and an Oscar.
"It feels like some kind of crazy alchemy that all of these things are colliding on a day like today. My daughter got her first tooth this week. I woke up with her lying on my chest, snuggling me. What a gift to get to explore motherhood through this incredible mother that Agnes is and was, and then to become one myself. Then to receive this recognition of the incredible role mothers play in our world on this day is something I will never, ever forget".
And what remains of Agnes in Jessie?
"I don't ever want to let go of the incredible women that have really given me an education that I've been looking for as a woman. But I think this role cracked a kind of tenderness in me that... Sometimes if you're a strong woman, you're perceived as just being strong, but actually tenderness is as vibrant and strong as strength. And to know that through this woman where she was able to hold the capacity of strength and vulnerability and tenderness and grief and love in all its epic colors... I mean, why would you ever want to let that go? It's something I want to hold on for the rest of my life".
Hamnet reconnects us with our deepest roots, the origins that remind us of who we are amid life’s struggles. Like Agnes, Jessie has fought to understand herself and find a sense of inner calm, to recognize her worth and be recognized.
The final ten minutes of Hamnet might be the film’s most extraordinary stretch, a moment when Jessie channels the deepest meaning of motherhood, and of its absence, beyond the character. Her emotional depth and expressive delicacy, amplified by Chloé Zhao’s direction, speak directly to the heart.
She is an artist who never holds back, always putting body and soul before intellect. She proved this once again in her latest performance in The Bride, opposite a compelling Christian Bale, calling it “the most physically and theatrically powerful performance of all.”
When asked who she would dedicate her award to beyond her native Ireland, her answer is family: father, husband, daughter, but most of all, her mother and the women in her life who taught her how to stand strong in life.
"To get to know this incandescent woman and journey to understand the capacity of a mother's love is the greatest collision of my life. 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 continue to create against all odds. Thank you for recognizing me in this role. This is the greatest honor. I can't even believe it".
It is a testament to those who showed her how to live fully, without being defined by expectations.