Jessie Buckley: From the Feis in Cork to Hollywood stardom
Jessie Buckley through the years.
The young Buckley honed her musical and performance skills at Feis Maitiú, the hugely popular music and drama festival held every year in Cork’s city centre. It presents a platform for performers of all ages to present their work to professional adjudicators. The daughter of harpist Marina Cassidy, Jessie’s delight is apparent in this photo after taking first place in Irish harp under 14s. By then she was also involved with Killarney Musical Society, where she performed regularly after being deeply moved as a child by their production of Jesus Christ Superstar. “I was so convinced that the man who was playing Jesus had actually died on the cross at the end of this show!” she said later. “I was inconsolable, my mum had to bring me back and tell me that Paddy from down the road was alive and well. I just thought it was magic.”
She may have finished in second place, but Buckley's deep run in UK reality TV show I’d Do Anything aged 18 was widely celebrated back home. It also placed her talent firmly on the radar of Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose TV show was searching for a Nancy for a production of Oliver! The experience gave her the momentum to pursue a successful career in musical theatre in London. In fact, Buckley only happened upon the London auditions for the show after experiencing a disappointment. She had applied for a musical theatre course in London but didn’t get in. Facing an audition for another school days later, she decided to attend for practice.
By 2015, Buckley was getting small parts in TV series but a more central role opposite Tom Hardy and David Hayman in the series Taboo proved to be a small screen breakthrough. Nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards, the series was widely well-received, as was her role as Lorna Bow, a resolute and stubborn woman married to a powerful merchant and shipping mogul. Set in London during the 1800s, it revolved around the backstabbing world of a disputed shipping empire.
Buckley made her big-screen debut in the remarkable Beast, Michael Pearce’s first feature set on his native Jersey in the Channel Islands. The excellent psychological thriller sees her play Moll, a woman with family troubles who falls for a mysterious outsider (Johnny Flynn) who subsequently becomes implicated for a series of murders. “It’s so rare that you get a female lead character who’s got so many colours and places she could potentially go,” she said at the time of the role. “I always want to go back to that base level of unknown in any project that you do. And working with a first-time director, I love it. Because there’s a hunger there as well.”
The Glasgow set music drama, in which Buckley plays an ex-convict with big dreams of making it as a country musician in Nashville, showed her full range of musical talent and acting range to moviegoers. She plays Rose, a cleaner and single mother to two young children, who wrestles with an unrealised ambition of making her way to the home of country.
As well as her powerhouse dramatic performance, Buckley performs several songs, many of which she also co-wrote. It marks the beginning of a remarkable musical period for Buckley, collaborating with musicians like Neil McColl and playing support for Kris Kristofferson. “It was just an incredible journey to go on,” she said. “It's a rare and special thing when you meet a group of people where you manage to make music that you love making together. “I think there was a time when I thought: ‘If I want to do acting, I can't do that’. But I don't feel like that anymore. I feel like if you're just being creative in whatever way, then that's a good thing.”
Highly regarded US filmmaker Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) was looking for a female lead for his new movie when he saw Buckley’s performance in the British indie Beast. He promptly cast her opposite Jesse Plemons in his latest feature, a story in which Kaufman grapples with life, love and the human condition in a way that only he can. Blending elements of drama, fantasy and thriller, it tells of a young woman going on a road trip with her boyfriend to meet his parents for the first time. But there’s much more going on in a surreal tale that will leave your head spinning. It’s a role that demands a great deal of Buckley but she delivers - and the Netflix launch brought her to a wide global audience.
When top actress Maggie Gyllenhaal approached her directorial debut, an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s acclaimed novel, she needed two charismatic stars to play the complicated lead character, Leda. Buckley and Olivia Colman both stepped up - and both were nominated for an Oscar this week for playing Leda at different points in her life. The complex drama about identity and motherhood is one of Buckley’s most striking roles yet. “I am in complete shock!” She said of the nod. “The Lost Daughter is so special to me. To be recognised for anything connected to it is just a wild dream come true.”
What a remarkable day Oscar nominations day must have been for Buckley. Moments after hearing of her nomination on film’s biggest world platform, she took to the stage with co-star Eddie Redmayne for a matinee performance of London’s West End production of Cabaret.
She’s been getting rave reviews for her role as Sally Bowles, a performer whose world unravels, in the latest adaptation of the classic musical. For a woman who first sang and danced for her community as part of Killarney Musical Society, bringing the story to the world stage as an Oscar nominee must have felt very special.
It’s part of her DNA, as Buckley has always cherished the fact that she grew up in a creative environment. “I was incredibly lucky to grow up in a house where both my parents have just the most utter respect and admiration for art, whatever it is - whether it's music, poetry and literature and films and theatre. It was a gift. ”
