Late Late Show talking points, from Jessie Buckley’s Oscar guests to Hugh Wallace tributes
Jessie Buckley and Maggie Gyllenhaal with Patrick Kielty for The Late Late Show. Picture: Alan Byrne
Oscar-nominated actor Jessie Buckley said her whole family will be travelling to Hollywood to support her at this year’s Academy Awards, where she is nominated for her role in
“Oh, they're all coming. My family are coming,” she told
“My brother just came to the Baftas. He made this unbelievably heroic journey from the Arctic. He's a mountain guide, so he was guiding in the Arctic, and he sent a video at 6am on Saturday morning where he began his journey being dropped off in what looked like the middle of the moon. He made a 12-hour trip to the Baftas, which was so gorgeous.
“Mom, dad, my sister from Australia, my sister from New Zealand, my other sister from Cork, they’re all coming.”
Buckley and director Maggie Gyllenhaal spoke to Patrick Kielty in a pre-recorded interview about their new film, a modern retelling of Gyllenhaal said she could only picture Buckley in the role from the beginning.
“Once it had been written, I couldn't imagine anyone else but Jessie doing it, and I just wasn't going to stop until I had her.”
Buckley filmed before going straight into and said her heart was “cracked wide open in the most alive and real way” by the experience.
“Coming into and actually distilling all of that energy down into the ground, into motherhood, was just an absolute gift.”
returns to our screens next week, following the death of judge Hugh Wallace in December. His fellow judges, Amanda Bone and Siobhan Lam, along with Diarmuid Gavin, were in the studio to pay tribute to their late friend.
Bone described Wallace, who she knew for over 30 years, as “pure joy”.
“He was just remarkable. He was made for television. And not only that, he loved it. He loved every moment of it,” she said.
“He was an absolute brat, but he had an incredible sense of humour and fun. He just had this energy about him.
“He brought out my inner child. When we were filming we just laughed. But actually, what he taught me is there's a value in that, you don't have to take everything so seriously. You can have a laugh.”
Lam described how Wallace was always delighted to find sweet treats in houses on the show.
“We were always looking for jellies, whatever house we were in, or cookies. He would seek them out. He was always so delighted when a homeowner would leave out a little cake or a little something. He was just so lovely and open.”
Gavin recalled a dinner party Wallace hosted just days before his death.
“He invited us to this dinner, and he had his friends around the table, and he was in such great form. Martin, his husband, was there, and Martin was in sparkling form.
“At that table that night, when people he loved were with him, he was on top form.”
He added he still intends to work on the garden of the new home Wallace and his husband had been due to move into the week after his death.
“I'll be down with the shovel and spade to help [Martin] soon. But it's inconceivable that he's not with us and that that fun isn't around, but Hugh would like, I'm sure, to be remembered as being full of life, full of joy, and not taking anything too seriously.”
Golfer Padraig Harrington reflected on his impressive sporting career and credited his father with igniting his love of golf.
“My dad was a guard,” he said. “They convinced the Garda social club to build a golf course 15 minutes from my home. It was my playground, and I got good at it.”
His father died of oesophageal cancer and Harrington is keen to raise awareness of the symptoms of that cancer.
“If you catch it early, like all cancers, it's very treatable. My dad had acid heartburn the whole of his life, forever sending us go down and get a packet of anti acids, and, just like any Irish man, just dealing with it, not really dealing with it.
“He had the symptoms, but we weren't aware of it. If you have acid heartburn, or persistent cough, persistent hiccups, struggling swallowing, these are all symptoms. Pain in your upper chest, your throat, these are things you need to go and have checked out. If you get it checked out, it's very treatable. Don't leave it too long.”
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Three members of Ireland’s Winter Olympics team reflected on their experiences at the games in Italy.
Ben Lynch described it as “a once in a lifetime experience” to represent his country.
“It was incredible. The Olympics is such a big event for all of us,” he said.
“We train so hard, we put our whole lives into this and to have it all come together at this Olympics, and get eighth place and do it for Ireland, made me really proud, and hopefully made the country proud.”
Three-time Olympian Thomas Moloney Westgard also reflected on his journey from Norway to represent Ireland in cross-country skiing.
“Cross country skiing is the national sport in Norway,” he said, saying it is as important to Norway as hurling and football are to Ireland.
“I really had this dream of becoming the first Irish professional skier up there, and I’ve been working hard. I'm so proud and privileged being here.”
Cormac Comerford joked about the extreme speeds he reached in downhill races.
“I clocked 127 kilometres an hour. So it's pretty extreme,” he said.
“When you're going that fast, it's kind of everything and nothing [going through your mind] at the same time. You're trying to keep yourself alive and also focus on those tiny little details to make sure that you're really squeezing as much as you can, and be as fast as you can and make the most of it. As fast as it starts, it's already finished. It's exhilarating.”
Actor Danny Dyer spoke about his time filming in Dublin.
“We filmed it in Howth Castle. They built a sort of office, and I just sat in there for 10 days, and I learned 120 pages, I went insane. I saw none of Dublin. It drove me insane a little bit. I'm not gonna lie, it wasn't a pleasant experience, but I'm so proud of it.”
He said it was his own personal test as an actor where he acts through “a deterioration of this man as he unravels”.
Dyer will be returning to screens in the second season of which was a 10-month shoot.
“It was a long shoot. I’m so privileged, there are so many brilliant people in this show. We only scratched the surface in the first series. We had eight episodes in the first and now we've got 12. It's brilliant. It's so good.”
