The Academy Awards aired Sunday night, but I did not bother to watch. As someone who loves movies, lived in Los Angeles for over 30 years, and covered the entertainment industry for some of that, I used to be excited during the buildup to the awards show, looked forward to attending industry friends' Oscar parties, and made sure I watched most of the Best Picture nominees. However, over the last 10 years, Hollywood filmmaking has suffered a precipitous decline, and frankly, I have had better things to do with both my time and money. Most Americans have felt the same, and the string of movie bombs and low box office numbers has been the result. Yet, the woke messaging and inflated importance of most in that industry continue to influence the content of films produced today. So, this surprise acceptance speech by a Best Actress winner was a refreshing departure from that mindset.
Jessie Buckley was a best actress nominee for the movie Hamnet, a period drama based on a fiction novel about William Shakespeare's family. The film explored Shakespeare's and his wife Agnes' marriage, particularly after the loss of their 11-year-old son, and how it shaped Agnes as a mother, as well as Shakespeare's writing. Buckley's portrayal of Agnes won her the Academy Award for Best Actress, but it is her acceptance speech that appears to be more popular than the actual film. It has taken the internet by storm and provided a bright spot to what I have been told was a lackluster program. So, I viewed the clip of this, which is the only way to cull the quality parts of what was an otherwise long, boring, and obsequious telecast.
I know nothing about this lady, not even her name, nor had I heard of the movie she won her Oscar for. But I saw her acceptance speech and it was so sweet. She told her husband she wanted to have 20 more kids with him, praised the beauty of motherhood, and generally just glowed.… pic.twitter.com/L0cjwb5qmo
— Caitlin Francis (@MrsCMFrancis) March 16, 2026
Buckley took the stage to collect her award, looking beautiful and surprisingly normal given the freak show and barely concealed pornography on red carpets these days. Her speech was concise, and surprisingly veered away from the usual claptrap of actors and actresses thanking their vegan, two-spirited nutritionists or screeching about "Free Palestine." Buckley was ebullient as she glowingly spoke about not just the role she played, but motherhood and family. Buckley first paid homage to her husband and their happy marriage, then platformed the role of motherhood and how it transforms the world.
WATCH:
Beautiful! Best Actress winner Jessie Buckley uses her acceptance speech to praise marriage and promote motherhood.
— MRC Video (@mrcvideo) March 16, 2026
A sharp contrast from last year's winner, Mikey Madison, who dedicated her award to sex workers. pic.twitter.com/g73sOVb1Oa
Buckley's unbridled expression of love for her husband was not just heartwarming, but a biblical example of honoring her husband.
Fred, I love you man. I love you, she said.
You're the most incredible Dad, you're my best friend, and I want to have 20,000 more babies with you. I do, I do!
Proper order works, and Buckley and her husband did it orderly; an unusual occurrence in Hollywood and frankly, in the world in general. Buckley and her Freddie were married first, then they made the choice to build a family. I believe part of her expressive joy lies in the fact that, whether she did it consciously or not, she respected creative and biblical order.
Buckley then gushed over her offspring, her little girl, Isla.
And Isla, my little girl, who is eight months, who has absolutely no idea what's going on, and is probably dreaming of milk. But 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.
Dear friends who I know from the entertainment industry had three kids, at that time, all in their teenage years, when, before the window closed, they made the unexpected decision to have a fourth. This youngest girl became the delight of her parents and siblings. In conversation about the whys of their choice to have one more, they said it was an opportunity to experience the world again through fresh eyes, echoing what Buckley said on stage.
Buckley also honored the writer and director of the film by saying, "To understand the capacity of a mother's love is the greatest collision of my life." Collision is probably the right word, because what I know of the mothers in my family and my life, this word embodies the massive impact of their great love for their children. A love that never goes away, no matter how old they get. One mom friend described her 18-year-old as her heart walking outside of her body. That's fierce.
Buckley ended her speech with an homage to mothers in the U.K. and all over the world. "It's Mother's Day in the U.K., so I would like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother's heart."
This "beautiful chaos," Buckley described, illuminating that motherhood, and the passion and great love that drives it, is not supposed to be neatly packaged in illusory perfection or impossible milestones. It's meant to be messy and chaotic, as is much of life — at least the part that matters.
Soon after Buckley gave birth to Isla, she said on a podcast:
While speaking on the New York Times’ Modern Love podcast, Jessie reveals that playing a grieving mother in Hamnet brought out another side of her she hadn’t seen otherwise:
“I think when I was filming Hamnet, I deeply wanted to become a mother myself. And it was such a gift to move through this woman and her motherhood and her love and her loss before I became a mother myself. I think even getting pregnant and throughout my pregnancy and how I was thinking about what kind of birth I wanted and how I would be autonomous in choosing that as much as I could was very empowering. I think the thing I can hope to impart to her, and I’m sure she’s going to go on her whole own trajectory, and she should, is we have one life.”
Therein lies the rub. Just one life, and that life, in the grand scheme of things, is incredibly short. As it says in the Epistle of James, "Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away."
It goes by in a blink, and now that I have more years in the rearview mirror than I may have through the windshield, I recognize this. I still marvel that I am actually entering my 60th year, and also wonder: When did 30 years whoosh by without me knowing it?
Which is why this drivel from a "Regretful Parent" group in the U.K. is so disturbing.
On social media, Kelley Daring, an influencer, has become something of a spokeswoman for regretful mothers, amassing 250,000 followers by reading out anonymous confessions from regretful parents – some of whom wish their children didn’t exist.
As one beleaguered mum recently wrote to Daring: “I’m a 38-year-old woman in a loving, long-term marriage… having children (now aged 10 and eight) is the biggest regret of my life and the worst thing I’ve ever done. The workload of parenthood is crushing, and nothing prepared me for how much it would take from me… All I can do now is endure. I’m counting down the years until they move out and I can reclaim myself.”
How incredibly selfish. Women like me, who wanted to do it the right order — a loving, committed marriage, followed by children — wished we had had the opportunity to bring life into the world and partake of the chaos that Buckley so lovingly honors and that these nimrods amazingly regret.
In conversation with one of my newer friends, who is a grandmother, she asked why I did not have children and whether it was a choice or just circumstance. I let her know it was the latter. I was married at 41, and had we had the opportunity to figure out why we could not conceive (hoops and money) or had the opportunity to foster or adopt (again, hoops and money), we would have changed the trajectory. I also said I could not understand people who have the opportunity and capacity to give a child a great life, but refuse to do so because they think their career, or their ability to travel and enjoy nice things, will be forever out of their reach.
No — the only regret involved is the propaganda (like this) and the culture that pushed us to having kids in our 30s instead of our 20s. But I’m grateful for God’s timing. https://t.co/Zcb5ixYi1l
— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) March 8, 2026
These same "regretful" young women will enter their latter years or suffer a catastrophic illness or life change, and then wonder why the children they treated like a burden don't want to be burdened with them.
Jessie Buckley will have no such worries, and using this newfound platform to celebrate what matters in life: love, marriage, and family, is an example that should be applauded.
