hen she was filming Hamnet, Jessie Buckley dreamt that she was underwater. “There’s a huge stingray coming over you,” she narrates in her meditation app-worthy Irish lilt, “swallowing something that you’re trying
to save that’s stuck behind a rock.” For Buckley, who plays a mother trying to save her child in Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, it was one of many subconscious moments that made it into her performance. Buckley even worked with a dream coach, Kim Gillingham, to help channel those nocturnal visions into reality.
In Hamnet, Buckley evokes grief in a way possibly never seen on-screen. Though it’s a cliché to say an actor disappears into her roles, she really does subsume herself into the part of Agnes, William Shakespeare’s wife, as she has in so many other performances. Seeing Buckley as a struggling mother in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s 2021 film The Lost Daughter, Judy Garland’s production assistant in 2019 film Judy or an aspiring country singer in 2018’s Wild Rose, I reliably failed to recognise her until the credits rolled. Even now, sitting in her self-described “old house” in Norfolk, England, her short brunette hair tousled, she looks utterly different from what I pictured. She is also unrecognisible in Gyllenhaal’s upcoming film The Bride!, in which she plays a creature made from the body of a murdered woman and given to Frankenstein as a romantic companion. It’s partly that Buckley has one of those faces, but also that she commits herself so wholeheartedly and unselfconsciously that you forget she’s acting. “My job is to get more human,” she tells me. “To become more human, if I dare.” Her performance in Hamnet is volcanically physical; Zhao had Buckley and co-star Paul Mescal do a tantric workshop to, as Buckley says, build up a “kinetic trust” between them. (Whatever you’re picturing, it was much tamer; Buckley says, laughing: “We didn’t consummate it.”)
Buckley studied Shakespearean acting at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and first trod the boards in a production of The Tempest at the Globe Theatre (where the final scene of Hamnet also happens to take place). She’s always been drawn to the language of the Bard, which feels just as relevant more than 400 years on. “We need big language for right now,” she says. Buckley also has a musical background, having been tapped for a musical theatre reality show produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber as a teen. Music “was able to hold my 15-year-old bursting-firework feelings”, she says, and it remains a major influence. She recorded an album in 2022, and says hearing Dame Judi Dench and Nina Simone sing shaped her approach to acting. “They choose to, in the bravest way, let you see the cracks inside their own heart,” she says.
One of the striking aspects of Hamnet is the way it shows how grief can isolate and divide the grieving. William and Agnes have vastly divergent ways of responding to tragedy, and need to find their way back to each other. “Grief and love isn’t one colour,” Buckley says. “There’s rage in there. There’s broken pieces of glass. It’s love, it’s everything. Stories help us transcend the things that we don’t know how to let out of ourselves.”
As she prepared to film the powerful finale, “I had no idea where I was going to go. And being lost was part of it. I remember thinking, Actually, maybe it’s deeply human to be lost. And if I can let them see that, then so be it,” she says. “The humanity is a person who’s trying to find themselves in a moment where they’re totally broken. It’s a mess being a human.”
Hamnet is in cinemas on January 15; The Bride! is in cinemas on March 5.
W
Photographed by Nathaniel Goldberg
Styled by Alex White
Words by Véronique Hyland
AS THE STAR OF 'HAMNET', JESSIE BUCKLEY DELIVERS AN UNVARNISHED PORTRAYAL OF GRIEF — ONE THAT IS THE TALK OF THE TOWN THIS AWARDS SEASON
the chameleon
Jessie,
Jessie Buckley wears Celine dress, price on application; Bulgari ring, $4220.
Tory Burch jumper, skirt and shoes, all price on application; Calzedonia tights, $49.95; Bulgari bracelet, price on application.
Lanvin coat, price on application; Miu Miu dress, price on application, and bra, $1630; Calzedonia tights, $27; Prada shoes, price on application.
Celine dress, price on application; Bulgari ring, $4220.
ON WORKING WITH FEMALE DIRECTORS
“It’s not been a conscious priority. The material has been the most interesting. I have been seismically changed by women’s singular language as directors. When I have read the scripts that they’ve sent me, I recognise someone that I hope to have known and met at some point in my life. The questions and the provocations and the characters — and the understanding of what it is to be a full life force, the complex spectrum of colours of a woman — is something that they have seeded in all of their movies. It’s in Chloé Zhao’s 'Nomadland', in Sarah Polley’s documentary 'Stories We Tell'. They’re full. And I think the reason why I keep working with female directors is because they want the full story.”
ON PLAYING OPPOSITE PAUL MESCAL IN 'HAMNET'
“Sometimes you just have great chemistry with somebody on set, which allowed us to go wherever we needed to go. As friends, we knew we could hold all of that and we did. And more than any male co-star I’ve had, it was the fullest version of what that was.”
ON WHAT 'HAMNET' HAS TO SAY ABOUT GRIEF AND LOVE
“I love love. Love is worth it. What else are you going to do? Lock yourself away? I think you’ve got to live. 'Hamnet', even though he dies, lives on. Shakespeare has made something immortal in some way and created a way for this story, this son, this thing that happened in his life to be bigger than the moment. Maybe we have to live like that.”
Talent JESSIE BUCKLEY
Editor Jessica Bailey
PHOTOGRAPHED BY NATHANIEL GOLDBERG
STYLED BY ALEX WHITE
WORDS BY VÉRONIQUE HYLAND
HAIR BY STEPHANE LANCIEN
MAKEUP BY WENDY ROWE AT THE WALL GROUP
MANICURE BY CHRISTINA CONRAD AT CALLISTÉ AGENCY
PRODUCTION BY LOUIS2 PARIS.
Wearing RALPH LAUREN COLLECTION AND BULGARI.
This story appears in the january 2026 Issue of
“STORIES HELP US TRANSCEND THE THINGS THAT WE DON’T KNOW HOW TO LET OUT OF OURSELVES”
– JESSIE BUCKLEY
hen she was filming Hamnet, Jessie Buckley dreamt that she was underwater. “There’s a huge stingray coming over you,” she narrates
in her meditation app-worthy Irish lilt, “swallowing something that you’re trying to save that’s stuck behind a rock.” For Buckley, who plays a mother trying to save her child in Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, it was one of many subconscious moments that made it into her performance. Buckley even worked with a dream coach, Kim Gillingham, to help channel those nocturnal visions into reality.
W
AS THE STAR OF 'HAMNET', JESSIE BUCKLEY DELIVERS AN UNVARNISHED PORTRAYAL OF GRIEF — ONE THAT IS THE TALK OF THE TOWN THIS AWARDS SEASON
Jessie,
the chameleon
Jessie Buckley wears Celine dress, price on application; Bulgari ring, $4220
Photographed by Nathaniel Goldberg
Styled by Alex White
Makeup by Véronique Hyland
Lanvin coat, price on application; Miu Miu dress, price on application, and bra, $1630; Calzedonia tights, $27; Prada shoes, price on application.
Buckley studied Shakespearean acting at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and first trod the boards in a production of The Tempest at the Globe Theatre (where the final scene of Hamnet also happens to take place). She’s always been drawn to the language of the Bard, which feels just as relevant more than 400 years on. “We need big language for right now,” she says. Buckley also has a musical background, having been tapped for a musical theatre reality show produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber as a teen. Music “was able to hold my 15-year-old bursting-firework feelings”, she says, and it remains a major influence. She recorded an album in 2022, and says hearing Dame Judi Dench and Nina Simone sing shaped her approach to acting. “They choose to, in the bravest way, let you see the cracks inside their own heart,” she says.
Tory Burch jumper, skirt and shoes, all price on application; Calzedonia tights, $49.95; Bulgari bracelet, price on application.
“STORIES HELP US TRANSCEND THE THINGS THAT WE DON’T KNOW HOW TO LET OUT OF OURSELVES”
– JESSIE BUCKLEY
One of the striking aspects of Hamnet is the way it shows how grief can isolate and divide the grieving. William and Agnes have vastly divergent ways of responding to tragedy, and need to find their way back to each other. “Grief and love isn’t one colour,” Buckley says. “There’s rage in there. There’s broken pieces of glass. It’s love, it’s everything. Stories help us transcend the things that we don’t know how to let out of ourselves.”
As she prepared to film the powerful finale, “I had no idea where I was going to go. And being lost was part of it. I remember thinking, Actually, maybe it’s deeply human to be lost. And if I can let them see that, then so be it,” she says. “The humanity is a person who’s trying to find themselves in a moment where they’re totally broken. It’s a mess being a human.”
Hamnet is in cinemas on January 15;
The Bride! is in cinemas on March 5.
ON WORKING WITH FEMALE DIRECTORS
“It’s not been a conscious priority. The material has been the most interesting. I have been seismically changed by women’s singular language as directors. When I have read the scripts that they’ve sent me, I recognise someone that I hope to have known and met at some point in my life. The questions and the provocations and the characters — and the understanding of what it is to be a full life force, the complex spectrum of colours of a woman — is something that they have seeded in all of their movies. It’s in Chloé Zhao’s 'Nomadland', in Sarah Polley’s documentary 'Stories We Tell'. They’re full. And I think the reason why I keep working with female directors is because they want the full story.”
ON PLAYING OPPOSITE PAUL MESCAL IN 'HAMNET'
“Sometimes you just have great chemistry with somebody on set, which allowed us to go wherever we needed to go. As friends, we knew we could hold all of that and we did. And more than any male co-star I’ve had, it was the fullest version of what that was.”
ON WHAT 'HAMNET' HAS TO SAY ABOUT GRIEF AND LOVE
“I love love. Love is worth it. What else are you going to do? Lock yourself away? I think you’ve got to live. 'Hamnet', even though he dies, lives on. Shakespeare has made something immortal in some way and created a way for this story, this son, this thing that happened in his life to be bigger than the moment. Maybe we have to live like that.”
Celine dress, price on application; Bulgari ring, $4220.
Wearing RALPH LAUREN COLLECTION AND BULGARI.
This story appears in the january 2026 Issue of
Talent JESSIE BUCKLEY
Editor Jessica Bailey
PHOTOGRAPHED BY NATHANIEL GOLDBERG
STYLED BY ALEX WHITE
WORDS BY VÉRONIQUE HYLAND
HAIR BY STEPHANE LANCIEN
MAKEUP BY WENDY ROWE AT THE WALL GROUP
MANICURE BY CHRISTINA CONRAD AT CALLISTÉ AGENCY
PRODUCTION BY LOUIS2 PARIS.
In Hamnet, Buckley evokes grief in a way possibly never seen on-screen. Though it’s a cliché to say an actor disappears into her roles, she really does subsume herself into the part of Agnes, William Shakespeare’s wife, as she has in so many other performances. Seeing Buckley as a struggling mother in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s 2021 film The Lost Daughter, Judy Garland’s production assistant in 2019 film Judy or an aspiring country singer in 2018’s Wild Rose, I reliably failed to recognise her until the credits rolled. Even now, sitting in her self-described “old house” in Norfolk, England, her short brunette hair tousled, she looks utterly different from what I pictured. She is also unrecognisible in Gyllenhaal’s upcoming film The Bride!, in which she plays a creature made from the body of a murdered woman and given to Frankenstein as a romantic companion. It’s partly that Buckley has one of those faces, but also that she commits herself so wholeheartedly and unselfconsciously that you forget she’s acting. “My job is to get more human,” she tells me. “To become more human, if I dare.” Her performance in Hamnet is volcanically physical; Zhao had Buckley and co-star Paul Mescal do a tantric workshop to, as Buckley says, build up a “kinetic trust” between them. (Whatever you’re picturing, it was much tamer; Buckley says, laughing: “We didn’t consummate it.”)