Rose Byrne, fresh off her Golden Globe Award win and Oscar nomination for the leading role in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, has been named the 2026 Woman of the Year by Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals.
Australian actor Byrne, who has also starred in Bridesmaids, Neighbours, Insidious, and Damages, will be honoured on February 13 with a parade through the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
After that, she will receive her traditional pudding pot award at a celebratory roast. She will then attend a performance of Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ 177th production Salooney Tunes.
In her review of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, The Associated Press’ Jocelyn Noveck wrote that the film gave Byrne “a chance to display versatility and grit in surely the toughest dramatic role of her career”.
Actor Michael Keaton is the 2026 Man of the Year. He will receive his pudding pot on February 6.
“We are thrilled to honour Rose Byrne as our Woman of the Year,” Hasty Pudding Theatricals president Daisy Nussbaum said in a statement.
“Hot off a Golden Globe win and an Oscar nomination, it’s only right that she receives the most prestigious award of all: a pudding pot.”
The Pudding is the oldest theatrical organisation in the nation and one of the oldest in the world.
Since 1951, it has bestowed the award annually on women including actors Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Scarlett Johansson and Annette Bening. In 2025, the winner was Wicked star Cynthia Erivo.
Byrne has also acted in Juliet, Naked, Get Him to the Greek, and 28 Weeks Later.
Her theatre credits include Medea, You Can’t Take it With You at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and she will star opposite Kelli O’Hara in the revival of Fallen Angels on Broadway starting in March.
