The 2026 Oscars honored exceptional performances by five nominees in the Best Actress in a Leading Role category, but one stood out among her peers at the 98th Academy Awards.
Jessie Buckley ultimately won the accolade for Hamnet during the Sunday, March 15, ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
“Thank you so much. This is really something,” Buckley said as she began to laugh. She went on to give a shout-out to her parents and her husband, Freddie Sorensen, who she wants to have “20,000 more babies with.”
“Isla, my little girl, who is 8 months, who has absolutely no idea what is going on and is probably dreaming of milk. But this is kind of a big deal and I love you, and I love being your mom and I can’t wait to discover life beside you,” Buckley said to her daughter, noting that it’s Mother’s Day in the U.K. “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.”
The remaining nominees in the best actress category included Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Kate Hudson for Song Sung Blue, Renate Reinsve for Sentimental Value and Emma Stone for Bugonia.
Of the best actress contenders, Stone, 37, was the only Oscar winner prior to Sunday’s ceremony. While she has racked up seven nominations throughout her career, she previously won two best actress trophies for La La Land in 2017 and Poor Things in 2024. She also earned a nod for Best Picture for Bugonia this year.
Meanwhile, Hudson, 46, and Buckley, 36, each had one prior Oscar nod for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Almost Famous in 2001 and The Lost Daughter in 2022, respectively.
As for Byrne, 46, and Reinsve, 38, they both received their first Academy Award nomination this year.
Ahead of the 2026 Oscars, Buckley earned numerous awards for her performance in Hamnet, including a Golden Globe, Actor Award, BAFTA Award and Critics Choice Award.
Besting Byrne, Hudson, Stone and One Battle After Another’s Chase Infiniti in the Actor Awards category, Buckley made headlines when she dedicated her win to costar Emily Watson during the ceremony earlier this month.
“I would like to say a special thank you to my incredible friend and date tonight, Emily Watson. Breaking the Waves made me whisper to myself, ‘That’s what I want to do,’ and to share those scenes with you in Hamnet, I will cherish that for the rest of my life,” she said in her acceptance speech. “Your wild imagination, your brave, untethered womanhood, your ferocious gentleness is a guiding light to me. And the best advice you always give to me is to go back to the well of just being human. Ground zero, babe. You are the realest of the real.”
Byrne also won a Golden Globe in January for her performance in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, beating out Stone, Hudson, Infiniti, The Testament of Ann Lee’s Amanda Seyfried and Wicked: For Good’s Cynthia Erivo.
After admitting that the accolade was “such a shock,” Byrne gave her longtime partner, Bobby Cannavale, a hilarious shout-out in her acceptance speech.
“My brother’s my date. Thanks, George,” she said at the time. “I wanna thank my husband, Bobby Cannavale. He couldn’t be here because we’re getting a bearded dragon and he went to a reptile expo in New Jersey, so thank you, baby.”
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