From the Feis in Cork to Cabaret and Hamnet... Jessie Buckley's 14 steps to success
Jessie Buckley, from her teenage years in Killarney, through breakthrough roles such as Fargo, right up to her days as an A-list star strolling the red carpets of Hollywood. (Pictures: Valerie O'Sullivan, Netflix, AP)
The young Jessie Buckley honed her musical and performance skills at Feis Maitiú, the hugely popular music and drama festival held every year in Fr Mathew Hall in Cork. 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 .
“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 Jessie Buckley's deep run in UK reality TV show 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 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 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 ( ) 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 for playing Leda at different points in her life.
Buckley again gained strong reviews for her role as Oraetta Mayflower in series four of the hit US show. The Minnesota native is ostensibly a folksy and sunny character - but there’s a real darkness to her secretly held views and actions. She listened to recordings of native Minnesotans for hours on end as preparation for the show, to play a quirky nurse - who believes she is an Angel of Mercy.
Buckley’s take won high praise from creator and writer, Noah Hawley. “She finds things to do in the scenes that totally affect it and change it. It’s almost like she’s driving the action, like she’s a rudder. It doesn’t even feel like improvisation - it feels like she’s that person doing whatever it is they’re doing in each take.”
Moments after hearing of her Oscar nomination in 2021, she took to the stage with co-star Eddie Redmayne for a matinee performance of London’s West End production of Buckley got rave reviews for her role as Sally Bowles, alongside Eddie Redmayne, in an 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.”
Buckley collaborated with a cast that included Claire Foy and Rooney Mara in the 2023 movie from Sarah Polley ( ). The dark and powerful drama is set in an isolated religious community, where the women face a brutal reckoning with their faith and futures. After suffering from widespread sexual violence, the women are told to forgive the men in their midst. The women are faced with three choices: do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. The drama was nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars.
Her long-held passion for music was fostered through Killarney Musical Society and celebrated in the film where she collaborated in as well as performed many of the songs. But creating an album with musician and former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler brought Buckley’s passion to the next level and was shortlisted for the prestigious Mercury Prize. It was widely loved, with songs like as well as showing the sheer quality of Buckley’s voice.
“Writing the album with Bernard was born not out of even making an album — that happened by itself — but I was wanting to make something from nothing,” she told the “Usually I would adopt stories through a script and I was curious about: what if you have nothing? Honestly, I didn’t even think I would write one song, never mind a whole album and it just happened by itself naturally. And if it had just stayed with us, that would have been fine too. But it kind of took its own life.”
Buckley had blast in this British period comedy-mystery, in which she worked in her own Killarney accent. She teamed up with her co-star Olivia Colman for a sweary tale of a woman who starts receiving foul-mouthed letters from an anonymous source. Chief suspect? The colourful Rose (Buckley) who brings a musicality to her own expletives. “I guess we get right down into it, don’t we?” she told the Irish Examiner. “It’s like dirt on your boots — it feels good. I think Scottish people give us a good run for our money. I personally love when the people who are least likely to swear, swear.”
Buckley’s most celebrated role in a stellar career has Irish hopes pinned on her becoming the first ever Irish woman to win Best Actress at the Oscars. Brenda Fricker won Best Supporting Actress for in 1989, while Maureen O’Hara was presented with an honorary career Oscar in 2014. Both Saoirse Ronan and Ruth Negga have come close to a Best Actress accolade, nominated four times and once respectively. But Buckley is now favourite to make history on March 15 for her portrayal of Agnes Shakespeare in Chloé Zhao’s film, nominated in several categories including Best Picture. The emotional story is told largely through her character’s perspective.
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s tale of the Bride of Frankenstein - told from the perspective of the Bride - looks set to be one of this year’s Marmite movies. Opinions are differing hugely on this new take on a character who was left mostly speechless in the original film. But buzz has been positive for Buckley, who swings high and goes large as a murdered young woman brought back to life in 1930s Chicago. The timing of the film’s release, just a week before the Irish actress is widely expected to make history at this year’s Oscars, could not be better.
