Amy Madigan Wins Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for ‘Weapons’

Amy Madigan officially became the 2026 Oscar’s secret weapon of Zach Cregger’s Weapons by picking up the best supporting actress trophy for her work in the film.

Madigan, 75, set a new record with the win because it made her the actress with the longest gap (40 years and one month) between a first nomination and a first victory. She received her first nod for 1985’s Twice in a Lifetime, a Bud Yorkin-directed film that also starred Gene Hackman, Ann-Margret and Ellen Burstyn. The previous record holder amongst actresses was Geraldine Page who won for The Trip To Bountiful at the 1986 Oscars. It came 32 years and one month after her first nomination for Hondo at the 1954 Oscars.

Last year’s best supporting actress winner Zoe Saldaña had the honor of presenting the trophy, the first Oscar doled out during the show, and when she read Madigan’s name, the starry crowd responded with a standing ovation. Madigan noted how they were advised not to rattle off a list of names “because nobody knows who the hell those people are,” but she leaned in because it’s people “that mean something to you that you couldn’t be here without them.”

On that note, she thanked Cregger for “writing me a dream part” and letting her “grab it by the throat and we had a ball.” She also shouted out Warner Bros. chiefs Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca as well as Newline. Madigan then turned her attention to her fellow nominees in the category, Sentimental Value’s Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sinners Wunmi Mosaku and One Battle After Another’s Teyana Taylor.

“When I was doing all the Weapons stuff, I was kind of traveling on my own and people from One Battle and people from Sinners and all the films, they just kind of gave me a hug and said, ‘Yeah, come on in and let us know you. You can know us.’”

Madigan closed her heartfelt speech by thanking her daughter, Lily, and her daughter’s husband, Sean, “and, of course, all the dogs.” Then came the “most important” by a leap, her husband, Oscar nominated actor Ed Harris. “Ed has been with me forever, and that’s a long ass time. And none of this would mean anything if he wasn’t by my side.”

In Cregger’s Weapons, Madigan stars as Aunt Gladys. The plot traces the fallout of what happens when 17 third-grade children disappear from their homes in the middle of the night at the exact same time. The film’s final act reveals that the aunt of one of the school children is a witch and cast a spell to help keep herself alive amid an illness. Madigan’s Gladys became something of an online and cultural sensation thanks to her smeared clown-like makeup, an unmistakable wig and menacing presence. It brought renewed interest to her career, too.

“I was telling everybody, ‘Hey, I’m going to play this really wild lady,’ ” she told The Hollywood Reporter’s David Canfield late last year. “Then it came out, and it turned into something else. It feels very antithetical to the work that I do and how I live my life.”

Speaking of that work, it’s been reported that Cregger had a prequel in mind for Weapons, centered on Aunt Gladys and how she got to be the mysterious villain of his story. “Zach has a map of what he would like to do. But as we know about this business — until it’s real, it’s not real,” Madigan said last year. “It would be such a blast, and it would be really great if we could revisit her in some way. I’m excited about that possibility.”

See the star studded Oscars red carpet 2026 arrivals and full list of the night’s winners here.