NEW mum Jessie Buckley praised the joys of motherhood on Mother's Day as she won the best actress Oscar for her role as Shakespeare's wife in Hamnet.

The Irish star spent days filming key woodland scenes in the Forest of Dean in 2024, including a birth scene at the foot of an ancient tree.

Within weeks of finishing filming, she was pregnant with first child Isla. And in Hollywood, at the awards she said the hit film's themes of maternal love, family and grief at losing a child had “cracked a kind of tenderness” in her.

“I would like to dedicate this to the beautiful chaos of a mother's heart...” she said.

And later, the star revealed: “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 Agnes is and was, and then to become one myself, and then to receive this recognition of the incredible role mothers play in our world on this day is something I will never, ever forget.”

Buckley, who married husband Freddie in 2023, and had daughter Isla in 2025, said: “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 they are either drunk or staying up, I’m delighted for them, for us all.”

The hit film's woodland scenes were shot in Lydney Park Estate, with one of its ancient trees where Agnes gives birth embraced by its roots, next to an underworld hole in the earth that becomes a recurring motif.

Cinematographer Lukasz Zal says they were scoping locations in the historic estate trying "to find ways to shoot this forest" when they happened upon the old, gnarled tree, with a deep opening into the ground.

It communicates her deep connection with nature and her heartache over losing her mother and later 11-year-old son Hamnet.

Zal told screendaily.com that director Chloé Zhao wanted a "naturalistic, normal" look, with an "honest and simple" feel.

The verdant woodland scenes frame Agnes as a child of nature, exploring the forests around her cottage, foraging for herbal remedies, meeting Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and even giving birth there.

She refuses to leave nature's embrace, while Shakespeare, who would later write A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It inspired by the bewitching woods, heads to London to seek fame and fortune.

But the tragedy of Hamnet's death draws them back together, inspiring him to write Hamlet in tribute.

Production designer Fiona Crombie said: “I remember being so sad on our last day at Lydney, thinking I might never be back. These places became so dear to us.”

Lydney Park at Aylburton is a 17th-century country estate surrounding Lydney House, the home of the Bathurst family, and known for its gardens and Roman temple complex.