Jessie Buckley hailed for role in Hamnet as awards season builds

Jessie Buckley has been widely praised for her portrayal of Agnes (Anne) Hathaway in Chloé Zhao’s film Hamnet, a meditation on love and grief that charts William Shakespeare and his wife’s anguish after the death of their 11-year-old son. The film’s emotional force is said to be carried by Buckley’s performance, described by critics as raw and intimate; she has won a Critics’ Circle award for best actress and been marked out as a leading contender for the Golden Globes, Baftas and Oscars.

The Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw called her “unselfconsciously beguiling”, while Rolling Stone predicted audiences “will be talking about Jessie Buckley’s performance for years”. Zhao described a key scene—when Agnes realises her son has died and Buckley releases an unfiltered scream—as coming from “beyond past, present and future”.

Buckley’s ability to inhabit extreme emotions has been honed on stage and screen. Born in Killarney and the eldest of five, she trained at Rada and began her public career on the BBC talent show I’d Do Anything in 2008, which she later called “brutalising”. Her résumé includes stage roles at Shakespeare’s Globe and the West End, television appearances in War & Peace, Taboo and The Woman in White, and films from her debut Beast to Wild Rose, The Courier, The Lost Daughter—which earned her a first Oscar nomination—and Men.

Key Topics

Culture, Jessie Buckley, Hamnet, Chloé Zhao, Maggie O'farrell, William Shakespeare