Jessie Buckley capped off a dominant awards season with an Oscar for her lead performance in “Hamnet.” Buckley won just about every major award for her portrayal of Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), in Chloé Zhao’s film based on Maggie O’Farrell’s acclaimed novel.
Buckley’s performance is a visceral exploration of motherhood and grief. Agnes’s son, the title character, dies of the plague, and she falls into crippling sorrow. But perhaps her most praised sequence arrives in the movie’s final beats when she watches “Hamlet,” the play her husband composed in the wake of the tragedy.
As a performer, Buckley has been on the rise since her breakout role in the 2019 musical drama “Wild Rose.” She earned her first Oscar nomination for “The Lost Daughter” (2021), an Elena Ferrante adaptation directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal also cast Buckley in the title role of her spin on “Frankenstein,” “The Bride!,” which opened earlier this month.
Buckley bested a field of nominees that 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.”
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