Amy Madigan won the Academy Award for best supporting actress Sunday for her role in the supernatural thriller “Weapons,” 40 years after her last nomination.
Madigan embodied the role of Gladys, giving a phenomenally creepy portrayal of the great-aunt of a young boy whose classmates go missing overnight. She won the Critics’ Choice Award and Actor Award in the same category.
The 75-year-old let out a deep cackle as she went on stage to accept the award.
“We’re kind of advised, ’Don’t say all these names, as nobody knows who the hell these people are,’” she said. “But you’re not rattling them off. They mean something to you; that you couldn’t be here without them.”
The last time she was nominated for an Oscar was for her role in 1985 family drama “Twice in a Lifetime,” setting a record for the longest gap between nominations for an actress.
“Everybody’s asking me … ‘Well it’s been 40 years, what’s different about this time?’” Madigan said. “What’s different is this little gold guy.”
Her character is so integral to one of the movie’s biggest twists that she was kept out of the press tour and early marketing for the film so as to not give away any spoilers.
“Gladys has surprised me, she’s getting a lot of love back,” Madigan said in her acceptance speech at the Annual Actor Awards. “I didn’t know y’all wanted to hang out with her.”
Her character is “kind of inspiring in a strange way,” despite being the movie’s villain, she said after her Oscar win.
If given the opportunity, she would love to reprise the role in an Aunt Gladys prequel, she said.
Some of Madigan’s most notable roles in her long career were in “Field of Dreams” and “Uncle Buck” in 1989. She has also acted in Broadway and off-Broadway productions.
“Opportunities (as an older actress) are less and you just hope that something finds you so you can find it,” she said in an interview with The New York Times. “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.”
Madigan thanked director and writer Zach Cregger for writing a “dream part” for her. While horror movies have traditionally been snubbed for awards, being treated like the “little kids table at Thanksgiving,” Madigan said she was heartened by the recognition for genre films like “Weapons” and “Sinners” this year.
She also gave a shoutout to the other nominees Teyana Taylor in “One Battle After Another,” Wunmi Mosaku in “Sinners,” and Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in “Sentimental Value.” The category did not have a clear favorite ahead of this year’s ceremony, with a crowded field of nominees splitting the biggest awards of the season.
