Jessie Buckley says she is ‘lover of cats’ as actress clarifies earlier comments

She said in an interview last year that when she met her husband, she gave him an ultimatum that he had to choose either her or his cats.

Jessie Buckley has told Jimmy Fallon’s US chat show that she is a cat lover, after saying she did not like them in a previous interview (Ian West/PA)

Actress Jessie Buckley has clarified that she is a “lover of cats” following a heated backlash from feline fans who were upset that she said she did not like them in a previous interview.

Appearing on Jimmy Fallon’s US chat show on Thursday, Buckley said she even auditioned to be a cat once, and it was a “misconception” that she hated the animals.

During an interview to publicise their film Hamnet last year, she and co-star Paul Mescal were asked if they were cat or dog people, and both replied that they prefer dogs.

“I don’t like cats,” Buckley said. “Cats are mean.”

She also said that when she met her husband, she gave him an ultimatum that he had to choose either her or his cats.

But appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Buckley said she does, in fact, like cats.

Jessie Buckley clears up the rumor that she doesn’t like cats 🤣 #FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/PfBkVOfO2C

— The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) March 6, 2026

“I need to clarify something for all cat lovers in the world, right?,” she told Fallon.

“I am a lover of cats. I woke up this morning – does the world think that I really don’t love cats? And it’s really weighed on me all day. I felt sick.

“I want to just tell cat people that I actually auditioned to be a cat once.

“There’s been a misconception because of an interview that I did. They asked me if I was a dog or a cat, and honestly, I think I’m probably a quarter cat and three quarters dog.”

She added that she auditioned to be in the 2019 film of the musical Cats, but did not get the part.

“It was honestly the worst – I gave the worst audition of my life,” she told Fallon.

“It was so hot. I was sweating. I was like, licking my paws, like trying to leap.

“I was just like a hoof of an Irish woman leaping across and licking her paws. And anyway, obviously I didn’t get it.”

Buckley, who won the best actress Bafta for her role in Hamnet last month and is nominated for an Oscar, made the original comments on cats when she and Mescal appeared on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast in November.