Following a two-week delay due to a blizzard, Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals honored actress Rose Byrne with its 2026 Woman of the Year award on Friday, February 13. The daylong celebration of the actress, known for her roles in films including Bridesmaids and Neighbors, kicked off with an afternoon parade through Harvard Square, where Byrne waved from a convertible to the crowd along Massachusetts Ave while flanked by a coterie that included Hasty Pudding members, Freedom Trail reenactors, local beauty pageant winners, Harvard cheerleaders, and a pair of local ghost tour trolleys.
In the evening, the actress attended a roast and press conference in her honor in Farkas Hall, then caught a performance of the Hasty Pudding production Salooney Tunes, which runs through March 8.
The Woman of the Year honor comes during a career year for Byrne: In January, she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy and scored a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role as a therapist and mother in If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You.
Established in 1951, Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ Woman of the Year Award is given annually to a performer who has made a “lasting and impressive contributions to the world of entertainment,” according to the organization. Past honorees have included Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Scarlett Johanssen, and Cynthia Erivo. The group’s 2026 Man of the Year Award went to Michael Keaton, who was honored on February 6.
“We are thrilled to honor Rose Byrne as our Woman of the Year,” Hasty Pudding Theatricals President Daisy Nussbaum ’26 said, announcing Byrne’s selection. “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.”
Dressed in a black faux fur coat and wearing a pair of plastic sunglasses shaped like doughnuts, Byrne made her way to Farkas Hall surrounded by students dressed as secret service agents walking alongside her car. Others wore loud costumes, danced to “Sally When the Wine Runs Out” by Role Model, and played plastic kazoos.
Later, Byrne joined Nussbaum and cast vice president Izzy Wilson ’26 on the Farkas stage for a roast poking fun at everything from her 2015 MTV Movie Award nomination for “Best Kiss” to her “attempts at an American accent.”
Wilson and Nussbaum donned glasses and notebooks to become Byrne’s therapists—a reference to her Oscar-nominated role. Under the guise of performing a Rorschach test, the pair shed light on Byrne’s “narcissism” when she identified an inkblot that looked suspiciously like the poster of Bridesmaids. Nussbaum and Wilson then coaxed Byrne into performing an “edgy” scene supposedly from the yet-unannounced Peter Rabbit 3, in which the rabbit is a relapsed carrot addict.
Finally, the cast orchestrated an impromptu wedding between the Woman of the Year and her pudding pot award—with Byrne’s scripted vows including a promise to shout out the Hasty Pudding Theatricals in any upcoming award acceptance speeches.
At the post-show press conference, Byrne quipped that she’d already drafted a 20-to-30-page acceptance speech in anticipation of an Oscars win. “I’m taking it one day at a time,” she deadpanned. She then touched on her upcoming return to Broadway in the Noel Coward comedy Fallen Angels, which begins previews at the end of March and opens mid-April.
“It was actually fun being on stage and doing a little scene,” Byrne said of her Farkas Hall appearance. “It was like, ‘maybe I can still do this.’”
