Why Jessie Buckley Singled Out Emily Watson in Her Actor Awards Best Actress Speech
3 min readTHE RUNDOWN
Jessie Buckley, who is widely considered the front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar this year, added to her trophy collection this evening, winning the Actor Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for her work in Hamnet.
In her acceptance speech, Buckley spoke about the great privilege of getting to act for a living alongside her fellow SAG-AFTRA members. “I have been categorically changed by so many people in this room and beyond,” Buckley began. “To get to work with my heart in my hand and stand beside my brilliant, daring friends who show me their heart, I mean, what a way to spend a life!”
She then singled out her co-star Emily Watson, saying Watson inspired her to pursue the profession with the 1996 film Breaking the Waves, in which Watson plays a young Scottish woman.
“Your wild imagination, your brave, untethered womanhood, your ferocious gentleness is a guiding light to me,” she told Watson and the crowd. “And the best advice that you always give to me is to always go back to the well of just being human. Ground zero, babe. You’re the realest of the real.”
Jessie Buckley hugging Emily Watson at the Actor Awards.
Emily Watson, Paul Mescal, Chloé Zhao, and Jessie Buckley at the 32nd Annual Actor Awards.
Read her full speech below:
I want to take a minute to see all these incredible, inspiring faces and souls in front of me. I have been categorically changed by so many people in this room and beyond. To get to work with my heart in my hand and stand beside my brilliant, daring friends who show me their heart, I mean, what a way to spend a life! Thank you.
I’d like to—you, I’d 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. Your wild imagination, your brave, untethered womanhood, your ferocious gentleness is a guiding light to me. And the best advice that you always give to me is to always go back to the well of just being human. Ground zero, babe. You’re the realest of the real. I love and cherish being part of this community. I hope that I can continue to offer something meaningful back. Thank you very much. This is such a privilege.
Buckley’s performance was also recognized by the BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Critics Choice awards in the same category this year. The star was also one of ELLE’s Women in Hollywood this awards season, and she spoke in her interview about Hamnet’s message on love and grief.
“I love love,” she said. “Love is worth it. What else are you going to do? Lock yourself away? I think you’ve got to live. Hamnet [her character’s son], even though he dies, lives on. [William] Shakespeare has made something immortal in some way and created a way for this story, this son, this thing that happened in his life to be bigger than the moment. Maybe we have to live like that.”
She spoke more about the feelings behind love and grief, noting that they aren’t “one color. There’s rage in there. There’s broken pieces of glass. It’s love, it’s everything. Stories help us transcend the things that we don’t know how to let out of ourselves.”