An extraordinary talent in a crowded field. JESSIE BUCKLEY is a gifted actor with a tremendous range—from dramas, musicals & comedies to Tolstoy & Shakespeare—on stage, screen and television. She sings, she dances, she’s a songwriter, she plays piano, clarinet & harp. She’s an alumni of the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. And on top of that she is funny, sexy, and a genuine human being.
By: Clara Bowles
Photography: Courtesy of NEON
I catch Jessie Buckley while she’s filming on the upstate New York set of Charlie Kaufman’s movie I’m Thinking of Ending Things opposite Jesse Plemons, Toni Collette, and David Thewlis. They were in the final week of production and the filming called for night sessions that ended at 7AM, but she’s a trooper. Poised to be one of 2019’s breakout stars, Buckley is set to embark on one busy year: the HBO miniseries Chernobyl, about the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster; the fall’s Judy Garland film Judy opposite Renee Zellwegger, about her legendary winter of 1968 London performances; and as the lead in June’s Wild Rose, about a Scottish musician that dreams of becoming a country singer in Nashville.
But to see that her star burns bright is to see how she was raised, her talent knowing no bounds. Buckley hails from Ireland and in 2008 placed second in the BBC talent show television series I’d Do Anything, a show based on finding the new lead to play Nancy in a London West End stage revival of Oliver. For the past decade she’s been a fixture on British television, turning in amazing performances in a wide range of work. She’s done musicals like playing Anne Egermann in the West End revival of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music; and is a BBC regular, appearing as Marya Bolkonskaya in BBC’s adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Lorna Bow in Taboo and as Honor Martin in The Last Post. Buckley broke out with 2017’s British crime drama Beast, about a woman living in the boundaries of an isolated community and is caught between her oppressive family and outsider who is suspected of committing multiple murders. Buckley was heralded for her performance, racking up solid review after review and received a British Independent Film Award and a Bafta Rising Star nomination.
She’s a musical genius, achieving Grade eight in piano, clarinet and harp with the Royal Irish Academy of Music and is a member of the Tipperary Millennium Orchestra. She also attended workshops at The Association of Irish Musical Societies (AIMS). Although she’s concentrated on acting as her creative outlet since I’d Do Anything, she’s about to combine the two with major releases that are sure to garner her newfound stardom stateside. And the girl with big dreams from Ireland is just shy of 30. Her upbringing is one of the biggest reasons for her success.
It’s Buckley’s Irish heritage that grounds her and helps shape and mold her career, life, life lessons. “I had a really hearty childhood,” insists Buckley, who hails from Killarney, County Kerry, and is the eldest of five children. “I loved Ireland, I loved where I grew up, it’s incredibly beautiful. I was fortunate enough to have parents that were incredibly supportive of music and poetry and writing and being part of experiences. We were taught that life is not based on materialism, it’s about something more. I feel like I grew up in an environment which encouraged me to listen to my thoughts and be fearless and to have an opinion about whatever it was that I was going into. And when you want something and you tie yourself to something and you fall in love with something, that’s always going to come with failure but that is part of it and that is actually where you learn the most about yourself.”
Learning about herself has given her an opinion on #MeToo and she shares a general view about the state of the world and how we treat each other. Buckley believes we’ve forgotten to treat people like people and the world has gotten confused by wanting everybody and everything objectified. “The #MeToo movement was a scream that needed to come out. I feel fortunate for it to happen and to be part of it and to witness it and to be emboldened by it and for it to provoke questions in me about what it is that I can offer to the mindset of young women and men about how we treat each other and respect each other,” says Buckley. “It comes down to respect really. It’s not black and white, it’s about unity and respecting each other. I feel super privileged that I’ve been a witness to this and I’m also saddened that it’s something that had to happen.”
Chernobyl debuts on May 6 and for anyone alive in the 80s, this catastrophic event was heartbreaking. The mini-series on HBO follows the April 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the old USSR and is one of the world’s worst man-made disasters. Buckley plays Lyudmilla Ignatenko, wife of fireman Vasily Ignatenko who died at a hospital days after the blast. In 2005, Ignatenko told the Guardian, “I tell the nurse: ‘He’s dying.’ And she says to me: ‘What did you expect? He got 1,600 roentgen. Four hundred is a lethal dose. You’re sitting next to a nuclear reactor.’” The film also stars Jared Harris and Emily Watson.
For Buckley, right now, her character in Wild Rose, will be her crown jewel in what is sure to propel her to super-celebrity status. In theaters this June, Rose-Lynn Harlan was a complete and utter joy to play. “Just the sheer life force of this character, it was hard work as well. She requires a lot of energy and she’s relentless. There’s no world where Rose-Lynn Harlan sat down and had a cup of tea. She’d have a cup of whiskey and say, ‘Let’s go.’ To maintain that energy and emotionally be ready to go along with her. I loved it so much. I loved her.
“What I enjoy about what I do is these women teach you something about the world or you look at the world differently because of them. And in a way she’s encouraged more of a fight in me as I got to know her and as she stayed with me after the film was finished, and I suppose there is always a bit of you in that character. The idea is to go away with a bit of them and they go away with a bit of you and you share something together.” When approaching a role, Buckley is looking for that new experience. “It’s such a funny little thing that happens and you react to it. Sometimes you meet certain stories at certain points in your life and you relate to them in a certain way. I suppose I’m looking for something I haven’t experienced yet. I don’t want to go into something with a similar mindset to someone I just played. I want to feel something when I read a script.
“There’s always roles where you put yourself up for something or something comes your way and it doesn’t quite work out and I think that’s fine. What’s meant for you doesn’t pass you by. That’s life. If I go in and audition and I really love something, even if it just existed for that moment, being a little in that for two weeks of your life. It’s like a book. All of a sudden you just think about things differently and you get lost and you feel in love with those characters for two weeks and that’s fine. And what’s great; sometimes when you get to live with them a little longer and you just fall with them harder.”