Amy Madigan, 75, Makes Oscar History With Best Supporting Actress Win 40 Years After First Nomination
Her spooky performance in 'Weapons' has earned Hollywood's highest honor—and her husband of 40+ years, Ed Harris says, 'She blew everybody's mind'
Amy Madigan just made Academy Awards history by winning Best Supporting Actress for her brilliantly unhinged performance as the villainous Aunt Gladys in Weapons. 40 years ago, the veteran actress was first nominated for her work in the film Twice in a Lifetime, and with her Weapons role, she became the actress with the longest gap between Oscar nominations, which makes her later-in-life victory all the more impressive.
At 75, Madigan is also the second-oldest Best Supporting Actress winner, and the septuagenarian star, who’s been acting since the early ’80s and is known for her roles in movies like Uncle Buck and Field of Dreams and TV shows like Carnivàle and Grey’s Anatomy, gave one of the night’s most sincere and memorable acceptance speeches. Read on to see why her win is so meaningful and learn about her long marriage to fellow actor Ed Harris.
Amy Madigan’s big win: ‘I’m very overwhelmed’
When Amy Madigan was announced as Best Supporting Actress, she embraced her husband of 42 years, Ed Harris, and walked onstage, where she let out a hearty laugh before saying, “This is great. Everybody’s asking me, in the press and all this, ‘Well, it’s been 40 years and, you know, what’s different about this time?’ What’s different is I have this little gold guy!”
While Madigan had been generating increasing Oscar buzz for Weapons, she was by no means a shoo-in for the award, as Teyana Taylor, the costar of one of the night’s most nominated titles, One Battle After Another, took home the Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe and was favored by many to win. In her speech, Madigan, who looked striking in sunglasses and a Dior suit with a ruffled jacket, said she was “a little flummoxed” and “very overwhelmed” by her victory, and she graciously gave a shoutout to her fellow nominees.
On top of the 40-year gap between her nominations, Madigan is also the first woman to win Best Supporting Actress for a horror movie since Ruth Gordon won for Rosemary’s Baby in 1969. In the months leading up to Hollywood’s biggest night, Madigan, the only nominee from Weapons, admitted she was shocked to receive her second nomination, and acknowledged the fact that horror isn’t always considered awards-worthy, telling Variety, “The first time around, it was a complete surprise. The whole world of how you navigate all of this was completely different . . . But this time around . . . I mean, did you think Aunt Gladys would end up here at the Oscars? No. Not because of quality, but because of genre bias. But I’ve loved being wrong about this.”
Amy Madigan and Ed Harris: ‘None of this would mean anything if he wasn’t by my side’
In her heartfelt Oscar speech, Amy Madigan thanked her daughter, Lily, and her husband, saying, “The most important is my beloved Ed, who’s been with me forever, and that’s a long-ass time. None of this would mean anything if he wasn’t by my side.”
Madigan and Harris have been married since 1983, and they’ve worked together on stage and screen throughout their careers, costarring in movies like Places in the Heart (1984), Alamo Bay (1985), Pollock (2000) and Once Fallen (2010). In her Oscar-winning role, Madigan is nearly unrecognizable in a wild red wig, smeared makeup and colorfully clashing costumes, and she said that her husband “loved” seeing her turn into a witchy horror movie antagonist, noting, “He’s known me a long time and he saw all the parts of myself melded into Aunt Gladys. I have a very supportive family—my daughter also—so I’m very lucky.”
Harris has been nominated for four Oscars throughout his career, and he was excited to see his wife win big and set a record. In an interview with The New York Times shortly after Weapons was released, Madigan revealed that Harris had told her “‘Something’s going to happen and it’s going to be a very different situation for you.’” She observed, “Opportunities [as an older actress] are less and you just hope that something finds you so you can find it. And I don’t take it for granted, because you can go up and then you can go all the way down, as we know.”
When asked about his wife’s performance shortly before the Oscars, Harris proudly said, “I think she blew everybody’s mind with Gladys,” and seeing such an idiosyncratic performance from an actress who’s been in the game so long earn an Academy Award is truly thrilling.
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