On Sunday, Frances McDormand claimed her third Oscar, for her starring role in Nomadland.
In the drama, from director (and fellow Oscar winner) Chloé Zhao, the actor plays a widow named Fern making her way across the country while living in a white van she has named Vanguard.
“I have no words,” McDormand said, accepting the award. “My voice is my sword, we know the sword is our work, and I like work.”
The Academy upset viewers Sunday by switching the order of the final three awards—declaring best picture before best actor and best actress. Minutes before McDormand’s category was announced, she was called to the stage to accept the best-picture award alongside the other Nomadland producers.
McDormand accepted the evening’s top prize by telling audiences, “Please watch our movie on the largest screen possible 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 tonight.” The actor then howled like a wolf into the microphone.
At least one user on Twitter declared that this should have been the natural end to the telecast.
IndieWire reported that the howl was a tribute to Michael Wolf Snyder, the Nomadland sound mixer who tragically died by suicide last month.
McDormand previously won Oscars for her roles in Fargo and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Her win Sunday cemented McDormand’s place in acting history. She joins only five actors who have ever won a trio of acting Oscars: Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jack Nicholson, and Meryl Streep. The only actor with more wins is Katharine Hepburn, who won a total of four.
McDormand was involved with Nomadland from the start of the project—she optioned Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book, is credited as a producer, and reportedly hired Zhao.
Earlier in the ceremony, Zhao also made history when she became the first woman of color to pick up the statuette for best director in Oscar history. Zhao is only the second woman to ever win the category.
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