The Hamnet star scooped the big prize in a historic triumph
Irish actress Jessie Buckley has etched her name into the history books after claiming the Academy Award for best actress in a groundbreaking moment for Ireland.
The 36-year-old has already secured a Bafta, Golden Globe and Critics Choice award for her portrayal of William Shakespeare’s wife in Hamnet during the 2025/2026 Awards Season.
Now, the Killarney-born star has completed the clean sweep, becoming the first Irish performer ever to claim the best actress Oscar.
In the film adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, Buckley takes on the role of Agnes – historically known as Anne – Shakespeare’s wife, as the couple navigate the devastating loss of their son. The actress has previously described making Hamnet as a “life-changing experience” and expressed feeling “honoured” to receive her Oscar nomination in the Best Actress category.
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The County Kerry native continued her remarkable run through awards season last month when she picked up the Bafta for best actress for Hamnet, with industry insiders having strongly predicted her Oscar triumph. Buckley has previously revealed that the role sparked a “deep need” within her to become a mother.
Speaking to British Vogue, she revealed that portraying a character who had experienced the loss of a child fulfilled a “deep need” within her to “find” her own. Buckley married her husband in 2023, and the couple welcomed their first baby last year.
Earlier this month, she set the record straight about being a “lover of cats” after facing criticism from cat enthusiasts who were disappointed by her previous interview comments suggesting she disliked them. During an appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s American chat show, Buckley disclosed she had even auditioned for a feline role once, dismissing as a “misconception” any notion that she harboured animosity towards the creatures.
Hailing from Killarney, Buckley spent five years at an all-girls convent school before participating in the BBC talent competition I’d Do Anything in 2008, when she was just 17. The programme chronicled the hunt for a fresh face to portray Nancy in the West End production of Oliver! Buckley finished as the runner-up behind Coronation Street actress Jodie Prenger.
Buckley has opened up about her struggles with an eating disorder and depression throughout her adolescence. She subsequently trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (Rada) in London, earning her BA in acting in 2013.
Her theatrical journey began that very year with an appearance at Shakespeare’s Globe in The Tempest, before sharing the stage with The Holiday star Jude Law in a West End staging of Henry V.
Buckley subsequently took on the role of Marya Bolkonskaya in the 2016 television adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and made her cinema debut the following year in Michael Pearce’s psychological thriller Beast, appearing opposite Emma star Johnny Flynn.
She went on to feature in Wild Rose (2018), a coming-of-age musical drama centring on Rose-Lynn, a troubled Glasgow mother of two and ex-convict pursuing her ambitions of country music stardom – a performance that earned her the 2019 Scottish Bafta for best actress.
In 2020, Buckley appeared alongside Jesse Plemons in the psychological thriller I’m Thinking Of Ending Things, where a trip to her boyfriend’s isolated family farm transforms everything she believed she understood about him. Her impressive television portfolio includes her portrayal of Lyudmilla Ignatenko in HBO’s 2019 drama Chernobyl, followed by her performance as Oraetta Mayflower in the acclaimed series Fargo.
On the big screen, she appeared in The Lost Daughter (2021) opposite Olivia Colman, a performance that earned her maiden Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress, and featured in the period piece Women Talking (2022) alongside The Crown’s Claire Foy, which tells the harrowing true account of women in a religious community who come to understand the full scale of sexual abuse they’ve suffered at the hands of men after beginning to share their stories with each other.
Most recently, Buckley joined forces with Colman again in 2023’s Wicked Little Letters and appeared with Four Lions star Riz Ahmed and The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White in the science fiction romance Fingernails, exploring the story of a woman who starts doubting her relationship despite a contentious test confirming them as an ideal couple. In 2022, Buckley secured the Laurence Olivier Award for best actress in a musical for her interpretation of Sally Bowles in Cabaret.