‘She’ll go down as one of the best’: The Rise of Jesse Buckley | Jesse Buckley

HAmnet, Chloe Zhao’s film adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling novel about William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes (or Anne) Hathaway, is a tender meditation on love and grief. The depiction of the couple’s agony over the death of their 11-year-old son – which is said to have inspired the play “Hamlet” – moved audiences to tears and united critics in their praise.

The film’s emotional power is carried by Irish actress and singer Jessie Buckley, who plays Hathaway (unlike Paul Mescal’s Shakespeare) with a rawness and intimacy that has already earned her a Critics’ Circle Award for Best Actress and marked her as a leading contender for the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and Academy Awards. The Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw called it “unconsciously disingenuous”, while Rolling Stone predicted that audiences “will be talking about Jesse Buckley’s performance for years”.

“[Agnes] “It was the whole story of what I understood about women,” Buckley, 36, said recently. “And their abilities as women, as mothers, as lovers, as people who had a language of their own alongside great men of letters like Shakespeare.”

This sense of Agnes as an uncontainable being finds its most devastating expression in one of the film’s key scenes. When Agnes realizes that Hamnet has died in her arms, Buckley lets out an unfiltered scream that interrupts the film’s cautious calm. Zhao described the moment as coming from “beyond the past, present and future.”

Buckley’s ability to absorb maximum emotion has been honed over the years – on stage and screen. Born in Killarney, County Kerry, the eldest of five siblings, she attended a girls’ convent school before studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in London.

She began her career in 2008 as a contestant on the BBC talent show I’d Do Anything, where she competed to play Nancy in the West End film adaptation of Oliver! (She finished second behind Jodi Prenger, and recently described the experience as “brutal.”)

After graduating from RADA in 2013, Buckley’s theater career took off, including starring roles in The Tempest at Shakespeare’s Globe and opposite Jude Law in the West End production of Henry V. Her early screen appearances were in BBC television series such as War & Peace, Taboo, and The Woman in White.

Her film debut came in the psychological thriller Beast, in which she played the lead role of Moll, a troubled young woman who falls in love with a poacher suspected of murder. The film’s director, Michael Pearce, told The Guardian that Buckley gave “every ounce of herself” to the role. “Because of this commitment you end up with many amazing surprises in performance.

“My initial version of Moll was a little cooler and more reserved, and Jessie instinctively pushed the character into a more lively place, as if she were a raw nerve that felt everything intensely and was constantly trying to keep that intensity under control.” Pierce’s editor was also influenced by it. The first thing she said was: “Where did you find this amazing actress?” “She is emotionally alive on screen.”

Buckley’s career progressed with starring roles in the television series Chernobyl and Fargo, and in films including Wild Rose, The Courier, and I’m Thinking of Ending Things. She starred as a younger version of Olivia Colman’s character in director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s feature film debut The Lost Daughter in 2021, a critically acclaimed performance that earned her her first Academy Award nomination. Buckley then led Alex Garland’s popular horror film Men the following year, playing a widow who travels to a village and is tormented by strange men, all played by Rory Kinnear. “Everyone who worked with them,” Kinnear told the Guardian [Jessie] You know she’s going to be one of the best to ever do it.

Buckley’s other recent films include an adaptation of Women Talking (2022) and Wicked Little Letters (2023). Meanwhile, on stage, her portrayal of Sally Bowles in the 2021 West End revival of Cabaret earned her an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The following year, she released the album For All Our Days That Tear the Heart with former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, which was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize.

The club’s director, Rebecca Frecknall, recalled the first time they rehearsed the scene that led to the show’s title number. “Everyone in the room gradually stopped what they were doing and focused on her. I don’t know what she was directing at that moment but it was one of the most exciting moments I’ve ever had in a training room.” Buckley “was living all the time as if she had a layer of skin lower than everyone else’s,” Fracnall said.

Ben Whishaw, who starred alongside Buckley in Fargo and Women Talking, said it was amazing watching her work on set. “It was like observing an animal in its natural habitat: she barely understands some natural instinct, and she is very beautiful, but also, if something gets in her way, she might bite,” he said.

“There are days when it seems like Jessie wrote a song, recorded an album, made lunch for 12 people, and had a baby before I could even get out of bed.

“Her performance in Hamnet is now among my all-time favorites – up there with Gena Rowlands, Maria Falconetti and Anna Magnani – people we both love and revere.”

Buckley and her husband, a mental health worker, live in Norfolk and had their first child last year, after the role of Agnes gave her a “deep need” to become a mother.

She’s up against a list of popular performers this awards season, including Chase Infiniti (Battle after Battle) and Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value). Whether she triumphs or not, Buckley said her goal is “to make people feel rather than become disembodied, disconnected, or isolated.”