She’s been called „the acting world’s best-kept secret.“ But Oscar-nominee Jessie Buckley’s latest role, playing the wife of William Shakespeare in „Hamnet,“ may change that.
She’s been called „the acting world’s best-kept secret.“ But Jessie Buckley’s latest role, in the film „Hamnet“, may change that. As Rolling Stone put it, people „will be talking about Jessie Buckley’s performance for years.“
Buckley plays the wife of William Shakespeare (portrayed by fellow Irish actor Paul Mescal). Adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, it’s a fictionalized tale about the death of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet. It imagines the tragedy inspired him to write „Hamlet.“
„I just knew I had to go somewhere mentally, emotionally“, Buckley said of her work.
I said, „You have this fire inside you – that’s what we see on film.“
„I don’t know, do you?“ she replied.
„I’d say so, in what I’ve seen, you see it!“
„I have fire, but I tell you what ‚Hamnet‘ gave me, which I also was looking for, was tenderness. And sometimes it’s just as strong as fire.“
She said when she started shooting the more difficult scenes, like the death of her child, she told her husband she needed to go away for two weeks. So, Buckley came to Hampstead Heath, a vast green space in London, where she’d go swimming each morning. „I just need to be in nature and start my day and wake up that way, and then go to the set and see what came out“, she said.
She says „Hamnet“ director Chloé Zhao (an Oscar-winner for „Nomadland“) reminded her cinema is not just escapism. „Our jobs as actors and the storytellers are to touch the most heightened expressions that are too hard to hold on our own“, Buckley said.
