Hamnet, Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s film adaptation of Maggie O\u2019Farrell\u2019s bestselling novel about William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes (or Anne) Hathaway, is a tender meditation on love and grief. Charting the couple\u2019s anguish over the death of their 11-year-old son \u2013 said to have inspired the play Hamlet \u2013 it has moved audiences to tears and united critics in their praise.<\/p>\n
The film\u2019s emotional force is carried by the Irish actor and singer Jessie Buckley, who portrays Hathaway (opposite Paul Mescal\u2019s Shakespeare) with a rawness and intimacy that has already earned her a Critics\u2019 Circle award for best actress, and marked her out as a leading contender for the Golden Globes, Baftas and Oscars. The Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw called her \u201cunselfconsciously beguiling\u201d<\/a>, while Rolling Stone predicted<\/a> audiences \u201cwill be talking about Jessie Buckley\u2019s performance for years\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201c[Agnes] was the full story of what I understand a woman to be,\u201d Buckley, 36, said recently<\/a>. \u201cAnd their capacity as women, and as mothers, and as lovers, and as people who have a language unto their own beside gigantic men of literature like Shakespeare.\u201d<\/p>\n That sense of Agnes as an uncontainable being finds its most devastating expression in one of the film\u2019s key scenes. When Agnes realises Hamnet has died in her arms, Buckley releases a scream so unfiltered it cuts through the film\u2019s careful quiet. Zhao has described the moment as coming from \u201cbeyond past, present and future\u201d.<\/p>\n Buckley\u2019s ability to inhabit an extremity of emotions has been honed over years \u2013 on stage and screen. Born in Killarney, County Kerry, the eldest of five siblings, she attended an all-girls convent school before studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada) in London.<\/p>\n Jessie Buckley, centre, as Agnes in Hamnet. Photograph: 2025 Focus Features\/PA<\/p>\n Her career began in 2008 as a contestant on the BBC talent show I\u2019d Do Anything, where she competed to play Nancy in a West End adaptation of Oliver! (she finished second behind Jodie Prenger, and recently called the experience \u201cbrutalising\u201d<\/a>).<\/p>\n After graduating from Rada in 2013, Buckley\u2019s stage career took off, including landing starring roles in The Tempest at Shakespeare\u2019s Globe and opposite Jude Law in a West End production of Henry V. Her early onscreen appearances were in BBC television series such as War & Peace, Taboo, and The Woman in White.<\/p>\n Her film debut came in the psychological thriller Beast, playing the lead role of Moll, a troubled young woman who falls for a poacher suspected of murders. The film\u2019s director, Michael Pearce, told the Guardian Buckley gave \u201cevery ounce of herself\u201d to the role. \u201cBecause of that commitment you end up with so many incredible surprises in the performance.<\/p>\n \u201cMy initial version of Moll was slightly colder and more restrained, and Jessie instinctively pushed the character somewhere far more alive, like she was a raw nerve who felt everything intensely and was constantly trying to keep that intensity under control.\u201d Pearce\u2019s editor was also moved by her. \u201cThe first thing she said was: \u2018Where did you find this incredible actor? She\u2019s so emotionally alive on screen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Buckley starred alongside Johnny Flynn in the psychological thriller Beast. Photograph: Album\/Alamy<\/p>\n Buckley\u2019s career progressed with starring roles in the TV series Chernobyl and Fargo, and in films including Wild Rose, The Courier and I\u2019m Thinking of Ending Things. She starred as a younger version of Olivia Colman\u2019s character in Maggie Gyllenhaal\u2019s feature directorial debut The Lost Daughter in 2021, a critically acclaimed performance for which she received her first Oscar nomination. Buckley then led Alex Garland\u2019s folk horror film Men the following year, playing a widow who travels to a village and becomes tormented by strange men, all played by Rory Kinnear. Kinnear told the Guardian \u201ceveryone that\u2019s worked with [Jessie] knows she will go down as one of the best to ever do it\u201d.<\/p>\n Buckley\u2019s other recent films include an adaptation of Women Talking (2022) and Wicked Little Letters (2023). Meanwhile, on stage, her portrayal of Sally Bowles in a 2021 West End revival of Cabaret won her the Olivier award for best actress in a musical. The following year, she released the album For All Our Days That Tear the Heart with the former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, which was shortlisted for the Mercury prize.<\/p>\n Buckley and Olivia Colman before the release of Wicked Little Letters. The pair also co-starred in The Lost Daughter. Photograph: Alecsandra Raluca Dr\u0103goi\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The Cabaret director, Rebecca Frecknall, recalled the first time they rehearsed the scene that led up to the show\u2019s title number. \u201cEveryone in the room gradually stopped what they were doing and focused on her. I don\u2019t know what she was channelling in that moment but it was one of the most exciting moments I\u2019ve ever experienced in a rehearsal room.\u201d Fracknall said Buckley was \u201cso live all of the time, like she has one less layer of skin than anyone else\u201d.<\/p>\n Ben Whishaw, who starred alongside Buckley in Fargo and Women Talking, said watching her work on set was fascinating. \u201cIt was like observing an animal in its natural habitat: obeying some natural instinct she barely understood, very beautiful, but also, if something got in her way, she may bite,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are days when it seems Jessie has written a song, recorded an album, cooked lunch for 12 people and had a baby all before I\u2019ve managed to get out of bed.<\/p>\n \u201cHer performance in Hamnet is now among my favourites of all time \u2013 up there with Gena Rowlands, Maria Falconetti and Anna Magnani \u2013 people we both love and revere.\u201d<\/p>\n Buckley and her husband, a mental health worker, live in Norfolk and had their first child last year, after playing Agnes gave her a \u201cdeep need\u201d<\/a> to become a mother.<\/p>\n