Eight things we learned from Jessie Buckley’s Desert Island Discs
Jessie Buckley first appeared on television as a teenager on the BBC talent show I’d Do Anything in 2008. She didn’t win, but since then she has built one of the most acclaimed acting careers of her generation, with films such as Wild Rose and The Lost Daughter, and stage roles including Cabaret.
Most recently, she won a BAFTA and an Oscar nomination for her critically lauded role in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, the film based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel about Shakespeare and his wife Agnes Hathaway.
On Desert Island Discs, she talks to Lauren Laverne about her inspirational family whose love of poetry and music inspired her creativity and how, despite the attention and fame that her acting roles have brought, she loves her quiet life in the countryside.
Here are eight things we learned from Jessie Buckley’s Desert Island Discs…
1. She received news of her Oscar nomination during a baby bottle emergency
The news of Jessie’s Oscar nomination for Hamnet came via a phone call as she was juggling life as a new mother. “I had just packed up my car to go home to Norfolk with my husband and my baby,” she recalls. “She was a bit ratty because I hadn't given her a bottle yet. I was cheering in one hand and holding a bottle in the other. And then I had to do a live interview… and I think the first sound that came out was her howling for her bottle.”
She laughs, remembering how listeners must have reacted to the baby’s cries. “I think they thought I was howling for joy!”
2. She swapped a luxury hotel for more humble lodgings while filming Hamnet
While shooting Hamnet, Jessie rejected her comfortable accommodation for something far simpler. “I was in a humongous hotel with 10 floors and four different restaurants, and I was on the 10th floor and I just couldn't be there.”
Instead, she found a remote shepherd’s hut in the countryside. “I said to production, ‘I’m sorry, I really have to go to the shepherd’s hut.’ My lovely driver was driving me up in the pitch black and he was like, ‘Are you sure you’re going be okay up here?’ I was like, ‘I’m going to be so fine.’ Sometimes you just need simple things.”
3. Her musical family were nicknamed ‘The von Trapps’
Creativity ran through Jessie’s childhood in County Kerry. Her family home was a guest house, run by her dad, who involved Jessie and her four siblings in running the place. “We were all part of serving and the entertainment for the tourists.”
She’d sing like it was going to cost her life. She needed this vessel to express something that she probably wasn't able to share just walking around in life.Jessie found inspiration in her mum's singing.
What did the entertainment involve? “Irish dancing, obviously,” she laughs, “even though I was the worst Irish dancer in the world.” She found it hard to keep her arms straight. “I just was like, ‘but I've got so much in me! Let it out!’”
Money didn't matter. “If you were living and you were experiencing and you were curious, that was all that was counted as being rich for your soul.”
4. Watching her mum sing changed her life
Jessie traces her love of performance back to watching her mother, who trained as a singer, perform in church. “What I saw in her when she sang was this need to tell a story through song. She’d sing like it was going to cost her life. She needed this vessel to express something that she probably wasn't able to share just walking around in life.”
The reaction from the congregation left a lasting impression. “These old men and women would come up with tears in their eyes and I’d be like, ‘what’s happened?’”
That was the moment Jessie understood what performance could do. “I thought, I want to do that. I want to have that conversation with people.”
She chooses her mum’s rendition of the Christmas song O Holy Night as her second disc to remind her of that time.
5. Her first stage role nearly ended with emergency surgery
Jessie’s commitment to performing revealed itself early. During her first time on stage, in a local amateur dramatics show, something went badly wrong. “My appendix nearly burst on stage and I was like, I’m not leaving until I’ve finished this show.”
Only afterwards did she seek medical help. “I went home and then ended up going to hospital and getting my appendix out.”
Even then, she understood what performing meant to her. “It was like drinking water. The more I did it, the more I realised this is essential to me.”
6. Performing helped pull her through a difficult period in her life
As a teenager at school, Jessie struggled with depression. “I had an eating disorder and it took time and it took a lot of help,” she says. “I didn’t know how to be alive the way I wanted to be. I just felt on fire. I was like, what do you mean ‘be small’? These are not small feelings I've got going on. I remember feeling so protective of singing and piano, of my music and my creativity.”
For the people who maybe didn’t have the sensitivity to recognise what was bigger than objectifying that young girl – maybe you can now. And I hope that doesn’t ever happen to another young girl at that age.Jessie reflects on her experience during I'd Do Anything
Jessie would wake at five o'clock in the morning and steal the key to the music room. “I wanted to just be on my own, to let it all out.”
Performance became a lifeline. “There were moments where I was like, if I don't get better, I'm not going to be able to do this anymore – this theatre, this music – and I probably won't survive. I don’t want to sacrifice that. This [performing] is bigger than that. And it won.”
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7. She looks back at I’d Do Anything with complicated feelings
Jessie first became known through the BBC talent show I’d Do Anything which she competed in at the age of 17. The programme aimed to find someone to play Nancy in the West End production of the musical Oliver! Watching it back now brings mixed emotions. “I love that little girl,” she says.
But parts of the experience are harder to revisit. There were comments about her appearance and she was encouraged to be more ‘ladylike’. “I wish that hadn't happened, and I think I was putting a brave face on, because really what I wanted to do was sing and act. I wanted to be part of this industry, and all of a sudden you had to be a certain kind of person. And I never will be.”
She hopes things have changed. “For the people who maybe didn’t have the sensitivity to recognise what was bigger than objectifying that young girl – maybe you can now. And I hope that doesn’t ever happen to another young girl at that age.”
8. Despite the awards, she still loves the quiet life
For someone who has just taken home a BAFTA and is nominated for an Oscar, Jessie’s home life is refreshingly low-key.
She lives in the countryside with her husband and young daughter. “It’s very, very simple,” she says. “We walk, I cook, have baths, read, change nappies.”
It’s the bath that she particularly loves, choosing it as the luxury item she would take to the mythical desert island. “I’ll sit in the bath in front of the sea and look out as it starts to go to night, and I’ll think: what a great life!”
