You could feel Hollywood squirm as the Irish actress affirmed that maternal instinct is a formidable force of nature.
You could feel Hollywood squirm as the Irish actress affirmed that maternal instinct is a formidable force of nature.
A s she accepted her Oscar for best actress — the first for Ireland — Hamnet star Jessie Buckley on Sunday night didn’t make a land acknowledgement, or shout “ICE out,” or complain about female disadvantage in the film industry.
“To understand the capacity of a mother’s love is the greatest collision of my life,” Buckley said. “I would like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart.”
A first-time mother herself now, although she became pregnant after filming, she managed to connect with her character — William Shakespeare’s wife and the mother of Hamnet — on an intimate level. She was charged with conveying the complexity and extreme depths of grief. And, boy, did she deliver. There’s a scene in which her young child violently passes away in her arms, and she lets out a wretched scream so primal that it is impossible not to cry when watching it. The anguish is palpable. Her performance transported even those of us who aren’t mothers yet into the unique realm of sorrow of a parent who has lost her greatest treasure.
It felt radical that Buckley was able to acutely channel that special suffering, which isn’t just a thing of medieval times. A mother losing her child is perhaps the most profound, traumatic, and enduring pain. Buckley demonstrated that it’s basically deathlike. Amid today’s moral confusion, Buckley affirmed the intrinsic nurturing power of a mother, for which there is no substitute. She hammered home that maternal instinct is a remarkable force of nature, and children are a gift like no other.
“Fred, I love you, man,” she said onstage to her husband. “I love you. You’re the most incredible dad. You’re my best friend. And I want to have 20,000 more babies with you. I do.”
You could feel the denizens of Hollywood squirm in their seats. In this age of radical feminism, which treats love like an accessory rather than a sacrificial covenant, and children like burdens rather than blessings, it’s peculiar to hear such a declaration of pure love, the healthy by-product of which is children.
But with joy in her Irish eyes, Buckley brought the elite pageant down to earth. She reminded the audience that to represent humans in movies is to also represent our relationships and the familial units that forge us: husband and wife, parent and child.
“And Isla, my little girl, who is eight months and has absolutely no idea what’s going on and is probably dreaming of milk, 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.
Just because new life is fragile and dependent does not mean it’s any less valuable. Whatever Buckley’s personal politics, I really don’t care. She said it all. It was as if she said, “Sure, an Oscar is a huge accomplishment, but there’s nothing better than cultivating a tiny soul who needs me for nourishment and wisdom and who has opened my eyes to what being human is all about.”
Accolades and applause come and go. Leaving a legacy is the most meaningful thing we can do in this life. And when that is taken from us, no one can deny the devastation, which Buckley so masterfully proved.