| Full Backstage Interview (March 15th 2026)
After winning her Best Leading Actress award, Jessie walked down the famous Winner’s Walk! It’s basically a long corridor after coming off stage to give the winner a moment to themselves before they enter the backstage press room.
Here’s some of the questions and answers that were given:
Q: Hamnet is about a mother’s love and a mother’s grief. How special does today feel?
A: It feels like some kind of crazy alchemy that all of these things are colliding on a day like today. My daughter got her first tooth this week. I woke up with her lying on my chest, snuggling me and I feel like what a gift to get to explore motherhood through this incredible mother that Anas is and was…and then to become one myself. To receive this recognition of the incredible role mothers play in our world on this day is something I will never ever forget.
Q: Listen, you’ve become history by becoming the first Irish woman to win Best Actress, but what is your message for your family, your friends, your fans, all back home in Ireland and Kerry, who stayed up all night celebrating your win this evening?
A: Don’t go to bed! Keep partying! That’s what I’m going to do! I’m so grateful for the support and I feel the love, man. I feel it. I feel it from young people and old people, from women and men, and from my family. To be here tonight with all my family who’ve literally flown in from New Zealand and Australia and Kerry and Dublin…that makes it real. They’re the people who built me and to share this moment with them and know that back home are either drunk or staying up. I’m delighted for us all.
Q: Hamnet is a film the audience will remember for its emotional depth and sensitivity. So, how do you think this role will stay with you personally?
A: Well, I think all my roles stay with me. I don’t ever want to let go of the incredible women that have really given me an education that I’ve been looking for as a woman. Um, but I think this role cracked a kind of tenderness in me that sometimes if you’re a strong woman, you’re perceived as just being strong, but actually tenderness is as vibrant and strong as strength. And I think to know that through this woman where she was able to hold this capacity of strength and vulnerability and tenderness and grief and love in all its epic colours. I mean, why would ever want to let that go? It’s something I want to hold on to for the rest of my life.
