Southern star
Michael Doherty catches up with award-winning Irish actress Jessie Buckley
It’s always a pleasure chatting to Jessie Buckley. Yes, she is an A-list star who has delivered a raft of outstanding performances for stage and screen, but in person, she remains the unassuming, no-nonsense Kerry woman that she has always been. It’s that very what-you-see-iswhat-you-get approach to life that makes her perfect casting for the role of Rose Gooding in the new big-screen comedy drama, Wicked Little Letters. Based on a true story from the 1920s, the new film is set in a leafy English village and follows the fortunes of Rose, a free-spirited, potty-mouthed Irish woman who finds herself accused of sending poison pen letters to her puritanical neighbour, Edith, played with buttoned-up precision by Olivia Colman. Indeed, it was Colman (wearing her producer’s hat) who personally sent Jessie the script. “I realised there was no one who would have been better at swearing in this way than Jessie,” said Olivia, and the Irish actress was quick to accept. “As soon as Olivia mentioned it,” says Jessie, “I was like, ‘Yes, I’ll do it! I haven’t read the script yet, but if you want me to play a sheep and swear at you, I’ll be happy to oblige!’”
Having recently taken on a series of particularly intense movie roles ( The Lost Daughter, Men, Women Talking) and following that with a gruelling West End run as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, Jessie welcomed the opportunity to play a role that would be light-hearted, fun and involve an industrial usage of expletives, only one of which she personally brought to the table. “All of the swear words were pretty much there in the script,” Jessie laughs, “but as I was reading it, I remembered one little moment from when I was growing up. We had a caravan in South Kerry where we spent all of our summer holidays. One summer, there was this gorgeous Traveller family that had come down. I was having a walk on the beach when I heard the father giving out to his daughter and he was like, ‘Arrah, come back here or as sure as God made gooseberries…’ I thought to myself, ‘as sure as God made gooseberries? That is the best threat!’ I went around to [director] Thea’s house and said, ‘Please may I just use the phrase, ‘as sure as God made gooseberries’, and that became my only addition to the script!” As sure as God made gooseberries, Jessie Buckley is our foremost talent when it comes to stage, screen and musical theatre. Her CV and roster of awards (Oscar nod, BAFTA nods, Olivier award, three IFTA awards, numerous critics’ awards) speak for themselves, and she has inspired a new generation of Irish acting talent, one of whom, Alisha Weir ( Matilda The Musical) gets to play her daughter, Nancy, in Wicked Little Letters. While the expletive-laden showdown between Rose and Edith is at the heart of the story; for Jessie, the relationship between Rose and her daughter, Nancy, is key. “Rose swears thick and fast,” Jessie explains, “and she is a free, uncompromising life force; but she’s not just doing it for herself; she’s doing it for Nancy. She doesn’t want her daughter to be brought up in a world where she feels she has to be any smaller than the mighty little
To get to scream profanities in the face of Olivia Colman was just way too delicious an opportunity to pass up!
woman that she is destined to become. To have the chance to embody that message and also get to scream profanities, including every F that I’ve ever wanted to, in the face of Olivia Colman, was just way too delicious an opportunity to pass up! I really wanted to have a fun time with this one, and I de nitely did.’’
In the past, Jessie has told me about her need to feel scared about a role for it to be interesting enough to take on. at was certainly the case with such momentous TV dramas as War and Peace, Chernobyl and Fargo; and such rebrand movies as Wild Rose (2018) and I’m inking of Ending ings (2020). As a recently married 30-something, however, what Jessie looks for in a role has varied somewhat over time. “I guess what you look for in a script changes at di erent times in your life,” she explains. “For me, there still has to be an element where you feel you’re on a precipice of something being totally unknowable, but there also needs to be something there that sparks your imagination. I like growing with a role, and I like walking on set and meeting people that you know you’re going to be able to work well with, whether that’s the director or the actors. And I guess I still do like to be scared a little bit!”
ere should be enough scares for Jessie when she takes on her next role, playing Shakespeare’s wife, Anne, opposite Paul Mescal’s Bard in the eagerly-awaited big-screen adaptation of Maggie O’farrell’s Hamnet. e fact that two of the most coveted roles in recent years have both been claimed by Irish actors is no surprise, given the level of success enjoyed by Irish lm-makers on both sides of the camera. is is certainly a golden age for Irish actors, and Jessie Buckley is absolutely here for it.
“I agree with this being a golden age,” she says. “I have no idea why that happens or where that’s all coming from. Maybe there’s just a con dence of expression in Ireland at the moment. I grew up as a teenager during the Celtic Tiger and felt very unconsciously aware that we’d lost a bit of ourselves during that time. When I go home now, I’m like, ‘Oh, we’re back!’ My siblings are going back and learning Irish again and getting back in touch with their own identity so they will have something to say for themselves. Maybe that’s a mad suggestion of why we’re going through a golden age right now, but it’s so gorgeous to see it and feel it. You have that lovely thing as an Irish person, where if you’re on the train and you hear an Irish accent, you’re immediately like, ‘Oh, where are you from?!’ And when you see your fellow actors and directors, writers and musicians out there in the world delivering something so powerful, it makes you feel so proud. It’s gorgeous and long may it last!’’