Upon receiving the Academy Award for Best Actress, Jessie Buckley dedicated the honor “to the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.”
Buckley, who played the wife of William Shakespeare in Hamnet, heaped love and praise upon her parents, husband, and eight-month-old daughter, and turned the acceptance speech into a celebration of motherhood, an atypical topic for a Hollywood awards show. The Irish actress also noted that the Oscars were held on what was Mother’s Day in the U.K.
In Hamnet, a grieving couple in 16th-century England struggles to cope with the sudden death of their young child, a loss that profoundly shapes the lives of Anne Hathaway (Buckley) and William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal).
“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,” Buckley said.
In an interview at North Country Public Radio, Buckley, who found out she was pregnant a week after Hamnet wrapped, said acting in the leading role helped shape her perception of 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. “A mother’s tenderness is ferocious. To love, to birth is no joke. To be born is no joke. And the minute something’s born into the world, you’re always on the precipice of life and death. That’s our path. … I wanted to be a mother so much that it overrode the thought of being afraid of it.”
Her comments stand in contrast to a broader cultural narrative in Hollywood, where motherhood is sometimes portrayed as a barrier to success. In an article at Live Action, Cassy Cooke applauded Buckley’s positive message about parenting, noting how it differs from the prevailing mindset in the industry, where motherhood is framed as an obstacle to career success and abortion is presented as the alternative.
Cooke noted that celebrities like Michelle Williams, Stevie Nicks, Alyssa Milano, and Cicely Strong have all positively spoken about having abortions, and how having a child at an early age would have cost them their careers. In a 2021 interview with People, Milano said she “was not equipped to be a mother,” adding that the decision allowed her to pursue the life she has today.
“It is not empowering to argue that women must kill their own children to be successful. Instead, it upholds a misogynistic status quo that causes women to fear that having a child will negatively impact their education, career, or future,” Cooke wrote.
Nicks, the former lead singer for Fleetwood Mac, released the pro-choice song “The Lighthouse” in the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.
In a 2024 CBS interview, Nicks said she became pregnant through a relationship with Don Henley of the Eagles. Having a baby, she said, would have destroyed Fleetwood Mac, a band on the verge of superstardom, and caused friction with former boyfriend and bandmate Lindsey Buckingham.
“It would have been a nightmare scenario for me to live through,” she said.
Conversely, on the heels of her first Academy Award, Buckley is embracing both her career and her role as a mother. Her exuberance was contagious in her Oscar night speech — a reminder, as William Shakespeare wrote in Love’s Labour’s Lost, that “Joy delights in joy.”
To her husband and daughter, Buckley said, “Fred, I love you, man. You’re the most incredible dad. You’re my best friend. And I want to have 20,000 more babies with you. And Isla, my little girl…I love you and I love being your mom and I can’t wait to discover life beside you.”