Jessie Buckley on Killarney, career and Wicked Little Letters: 'I didn't need a swearing bootcamp'

She is a regular on red carpets around the world, but seems utterly unaffected by fame. Esther McCarthy meets the refreshingly down-to-earth Jessie Buckley

Sat, 17 Feb, 2024 - 12:45

When Olivia Colman first contacted her peer and friend, Jessie Buckley, about their “naughty” new, expletive-laden movie, the Irish actress jumped at the opportunity to sign up.

“When she sent me the script, I read it and I laughed, and I was like: ‘Oh my God, a whole film about cursing, how delicious. I definitely want to be fucking doing that’,” laughs Buckley.

The result is the mischievous Wicked Little Letters, a comedy-drama in which Colman and Buckley have an epic swear-off when one of the women is slighted.

Set in a small town in 1920s England, Colman plays the pious, strait-laced Edith, who starts receiving colourfully vulgar and insulting anonymous letters which scandalise the close-knit community in which she lives.

The prime suspect? Rose — the type of free-spirited rebel who Buckley is so good at playing — who as a single mother already has tongues wagging, and that’s before word gets out about her latest exploits in the local pub.

“In some ways she’s free,” observes Buckley of her character. “But she’s very lonely in her freedom.

"Ever since she broke through in I’ll Do Anything, or indeed during her early days performing at Killarney Musical Society, her hometown has always felt a strong sense of pride in Buckley, delighting in her success." Picture: Taylor Jewell

Actually, the bravery of this single mother to not compromise that feeling in herself, mostly because she doesn’t want her daughter to have to be smaller in herself, is why I think she lives the way she lives.”

When Colman’s character decides to give as good as she gets, the language becomes even more lively. Was there a swearing bootcamp during the rehearsal process?

“I didn’t need one and neither did Olivia,” laughs the Killarney star. “You could feel it on the set; it gives people permission to be a bit naughty. There is a kind of tingle on the set between the crew when Queen Olivia is going for gold and when she gets going.”

Though she’s only worked in her own accent a few times, Buckley brings her Killarney accent to play here. Perhaps it’s simply the case that Irish people are more colourful when it comes to expressing themselves.

“It must be all those verbs we learned when we were young: féachaim, féachann tú, féachann sé, féachann sí,” jokes the actress.

“I guess we get right down into it, don’t we? 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. I remember my mum came up to my house. We’d been given mugs after we finished filming. She was having a lovely cup of tea and my mum is this beautiful lady but also a bit naughty, and on the back of the cup was Olivia’s last tirade of lava that pours out of her. She read it and she was crying with laughter. I have a slight dream in my heart that the lovely ladies around the villages of Ireland and England will meet on park benches and let it all pour out.”

The movie sees Buckley play mum to Ireland’s new remarkable young talent, Alisha Weir. Weir was great in the big-screen adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda and the 14-year-old is again impressive here, playing the beloved daughter Rose wants to make a better future for.

“She’s such an incredible young woman,” says Buckley of her young co-star.

“I think she’s so talented. She was with you every step of the way. I feel like she’s being her age, and that’s down to her parents as well who are guiding her through this. She’s just going to be around forever. And she’s just herself, she’s still a kid. I’m sure she’s going to go on and do great things.”

Jessie Buckley and Alisha Weir star in Wicked Little Letters

It’s a passion for music, acting and performing that Buckley herself experienced as a youngster.

Her creativity was fostered growing up with her siblings in her native Killarney, where dad Tim would entertain the family with poems and stories.

Mum Marina Carr, a singer and harpist, impressed on her the power of a song. Soon, Buckley was regularly performing at Killarney Musical Society.

At the age of 17, she was disappointed to be turned down for a place in a London drama school but decided that, while she was in the city, she would audition for a reality TV show.

That show was I’d Do Anything, in which musical legend Andrew Lloyd Webber was looking for a Nancy for his West End musical adaptation of Oliver Twist.

She had an extraordinary run in the 2008 series, finishing as runner-up, and a successful career on the London stage followed.

Casting agents had started to notice Buckley’s on-stage talent and she began to land screen roles; opposite Tom Hardy in hit TV series Taboo and on the impressive big-screen indie film, Beast.

But it was the heartfelt musical comedy-drama, Wild Rose, in which she played a Glaswegian mum with dreams of a country career in Nashville, that showcased the sheer scale of her acting and musical talents.

It marked the beginning of a remarkable musical period for Buckley, collaborating with musicians such as Neil McColl (brother of the late Kirsty) and playing support for such icons as Kris Kristofferson.

Praise followed for her role opposite Jesse Plemons in Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things, and she was nominated for an Oscar for her role (again opposite Colman) in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s widely praised drama The Lost Daughter.

As well as her run on last year’s West End adaptation of Cabaret, and the 2022 album she released with British musician and producer Bernard Butler, For All Our Days That Tear the Heart, it does feel like Buckley is firing on many cylinders creatively.

“I love doing them all,” she says of the projects. “They all feed very different things, and similar things, and you want to taste different things at different times of your life. 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. 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.

“With theatre, the feeling of a live audience is just the best feeling in the world. And that’s where I started, you know, that intimacy with an audience is something that I hold so dearly. And film, the same. I honestly feel so at home in all those places. I’m very lucky and I’m too curious to not put myself into places that I might feel a bit scared to be in.”

Jessie Buckley stars in Wicked Little Letters

Did growing up in a house of storytelling help?

“I guess it did. There was definitely a respect and they definitely encouraged creativity and art. It was purely because they got so much from storytelling, whether that was through music or poetry or cooking. It was a natural thing to do and we all know that. Around Ireland, you go into any pub in any village and who knows what character you might stand beside, who will tell you the most incredible story of their life or someone might pick up a guitar. That’s all I’ve ever known. And it’s not just within my home but the nature of storytelling is sewn into Irish identity. It’s part of who we are. I just read Colm Toibín’s newest book and all the characters live inside these tiny villages around Ireland, it’s just overspilling with stories.”

Personally, it’s also been a special time for her. She recently revealed to the Table Manners podcast that last year she married her English boyfriend, identified only as Freddie. The newlyweds divide their time between London and Norfolk.

“When we first started dating we would go to the Towpath [café] in Dalston all the time and I just fell in love with [owners] Lori and Laura so much,” she told the podcast, noting that they catered the wedding.

“It was amazing. They are such great people and one of my memories of the day was, I wanted a keg of Guinness and I definitely wanted their cheese toasties at a certain hour, after they served all the delicious things.”

Jessie Buckley at the European premiere of Wicked Little Letters

Last autumn to celebrate Culture Night, she gave us a stunning version of ‘Troy’, one of Sinéad O’Connor’s most powerful hits, in memory of the singer who had died just months earlier.

“I am getting chills thinking about her,” she says now. “When I was growing up, there was a part of Ireland that was scared of Sinéad. She was so ahead of our time and so human. I kind of rediscovered her during Cabaret and I remember reading her biography and going into a wormhole of her music and it just blew me open and I was like: ‘Oh my God, this woman was such a beacon’, and where she got that from inside of herself, I do not know. She had such a deep sense of humanity. When [music producer] Aoife Woodlock asked me to sing it, I was so privileged to be asked to give a tribute for her but also I thought: ‘If I can just be a vessel for all that she has given us as women in Ireland and given people around the world and the bravery and courage to speak the truth, no matter how she was put down for it, then it’s all going into this song’.

“I found it so moving singing that song and singing it for her and for everything that she gave us. There’s no way she could write songs like that and not have that truth inside her. I’m very sad,” Buckley added of the loss of the Dublin musical icon. “She was kind of otherworldly.”

Buckley will next team up with Paul Mescal in Hamnet. Adapted from the novel by Maggie O’Farrell, the movie will be directed by Chloé Zhao, who previously brought Nomadland to the big screen.

Ever since she broke through in I’ll Do Anything, or indeed during her early days performing at Killarney Musical Society, her hometown has always felt a strong sense of pride in Buckley, delighting in her success.

“When I go home, it’s my home and I feel so myself there. I can’t believe I get to do what I do and that it affects people. I guess the journey from Killarney to doing things in bigger places is something I never imagined but I always feel like I’m still just from Killarney. I feel so grateful for any support and all the people I’ve met along the way who’ve just kept encouraging me to keep going, especially when I didn’t think I could at different times. It’s so close to my heart and I love going back there.”