Frances McDormand joined a league of Oscar legends on Sunday night, taking home her third Best Actress statue for her performance in “Nomadland” and a trophy for producing the film as well.
McDormand, who previously won for 1996’s “Fargo” and 2018’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” is only the second person to have won three Oscars in the Best Actress category. Katharine Hepburn was the first, and she still holds the record with four wins.
McDormand joked that the retooled awards show “should have had a karaoke bar” as she gave a speech from inside Los Angeles’ Union Station, where stars gathered under strict COVID-19 protocols.
But she mostly kept her message short and sweet, drawing on a quote from the Shakespeare play “Macbeth” to convey her gratitude.
“I have no words. My voice is in my sword. We know the sword is our work and I like work,” she said. “Thank you for knowing that and thanks for this.”
In “Nomadland,” McDormand stars as Fern, a woman who decides to traverse the American West in her mobile home after the economic collapse of her hometown and death of her husband. Along the open road, she finds short-term jobs and befriends fellow wanderers. Many of the people who appeared in the movie were real-life nomads who lent their stories to the film.
McDormand bested fellow nominees Andra Day (“The United States Vs. Billie Holiday”), Vanessa Kirby (“Pieces of a Woman”), Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) and Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman”) in the evening’s most unpredictable category.
Ahead of the Oscars, key precursor awards had been spread relatively evenly among the Best Actress nominees: Davis took home the Screen Actors Guild Award; McDormand won the BAFTA; Mulligan picked up statues at both the Spirt and Critics Choice Awards; and Day came out on top at the Golden Globes.
With no single woman dominating the Best Actress race over awards season, it was anyone’s game on Sunday night.
“Nomadland,” which also won for Best Director and Best Picture, was one of the celebrated movies of the evening. As one of the producers in the film, McDormand also took home a trophy.
While accepting the Best Picture statue alongside director Chloé Zhao and a group of the real-life nomads from the film, McDormand encouraged everyone to try to see “Nomadland” in a theater.
“Please watch our movie on the largest screen possible,” she said while accepting the honor. “And one day very, very soon, take everyone you know into a theater, shoulder to shoulder in that dark space and watch every film that’s represented here tonight. We give this one to our Wolf.”
She then proceeded to let out a howl — a tribute to Michael Wolf Snyder, a production sound mixer on the film who died earlier this year.
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