![\"Jessie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/628e5e5b-f7ac-4978-b5ab-0483d91fe8e0.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe 36-year-old is up for Best Actress at the Academy Awards for her performance in \u2018Hamnet\u2019\n<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old from Killarney, County Kerry, credited a love of music and theatre for helping her with her recovery, but did not specify which eating disorder she had.<\/p>\n
She told Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4\u2019s Desert Island Discs: \u201cI had an eating disorder, and it took time, and it took a lot of help, and also it was depression\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know how to be alive the way I wanted to be, and it was difficult, but I do not for a second regret it, and I think I\u2019ve been able to transform it and recognise our vulnerabilities as humans in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, you can\u2019t walk through life not being affected, but you can transform that into something that allows you to be more human and alive in the way that you want to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019m very grateful for everybody who helped me along the way with that, and for the people who held space for that\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been in therapy since I was 17, I still go every week.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jessie Buckley spoke about her mental health (Duncan Barker\/BBC\/PA)<\/p>\n
Jessie Buckley’s style evolution<\/p>\n
Buckley said her audition to get into the Guildford School of Acting went \u201cterribly\u201d, but that same weekend there was an open audition for I\u2019d Do Anything, the BBC reality competition she finished runner-up in.<\/p>\n
The top prize of the part of Nancy in a West End production of Oliver went to the winner, English actor Jodie Prenger. Buckley received an offer to be her understudy, but turned it down.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolute gumption [to turn it down], the audacity,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know where I got it. I just kind of felt in my bones no, I don\u2019t think this is for me, and I really didn\u2019t know how the business worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not knowing an agent would traditionally reject an offer, Buckley said she walked to theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh\u2019s office to tell him herself.<\/p>\n
Macintosh recommended she attend a Shakespeare workshop at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada). She would later go on to graduate from the drama school with a BA in acting.<\/p>\n
Buckley revealed she was briefly suspended during her time at Rada \u2013 students were prohibited from performing outside the school, and she was found to be making money as a singer.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy misdemeanour was singing, which is like, my felonies are pathetic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really should smoke a cigarette and do hard, bad things. You\u2019re not meant to work when you\u2019re in college and in between.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never worked while it was during term time, but in between, I had no option. I had to pay my rent and buy food.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buckley has recently received a string of awards for her performance as William Shakespeare\u2019s wife Agnes Hathaway, historically known as Anne, in the film adaptation of Maggie O\u2019Farrell\u2019s novel Hamnet.<\/p>\n
The actor also said she realised acting was \u201cessential\u201d for her wellbeing and \u201clike water to me\u201d after her appendix \u201calmost burst\u201d during one of her earliest performances and she refused to leave until the play was finished, when she was then taken to hospital.<\/p>\n
She continued: \u201cWhen I moved to London, I still wasn\u2019t out of the woods.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there were moments where I was like, \u2018if I don\u2019t get better here, this music, this being part of theatre \u2013 I\u2019m not going to be able to do this any more, and I probably won\u2019t survive\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that was the thing that turned it in my head, I was like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to sacrifice that, this is bigger than that\u2019, and won.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Jessie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/569b6cff-1ac3-4e68-b72f-8a82bb983e9f.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Jessie Buckley has been a juggernaut through awards season (Ian West\/PA)<\/p>\n
Buckley also recounted her time on BBC talent show I\u2019d Do Anything, which was about the search for an actress to play Nancy in a West End production of Oliver!, and which catapulted her to fame.<\/p>\n
In an interview with British Vogue in January, she spoke about being criticised for her appearance during her time on the show.<\/p>\n
Expanding on this, Buckley told BBC\u2019s Laverne: \u201cI don\u2019t like that part of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that was a young woman who\u2019s trying to discover her body and herself, like we all do. And I wish that hadn\u2019t happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I was putting a brave face on, because really what I wanted to do was sing and I wanted to act, and I wanted to be part of this industry, and all of a sudden you had to be a certain kind of person.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I just wasn\u2019t, I never will be. That\u2019s just not me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buckley added: \u201cI\u2019m so proud of that girl. I think she did great and I don\u2019t regret any of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the podcast, she also spoke about her \u201cextraordinary\u201d mother, and said: \u201cMy parents are no longer together, and she lives in Dublin, and she\u2019s writing her own story right now at 60 years of age, and I\u2019m so proud of her.\u201d<\/p>\n
She sounded emotional as she gave her first song choice, which was a rendition of her mother, Marina, singing O Holy Night in church.<\/p>\n
Listen to the full Desert Island Disc episode on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 4 from Sunday at 10am.<\/p>\n