From TV talent show runner-up to Oscar favourite: Who is Jessie Buckley?

By Sam Hall, Press Association

Oscar frontrunner Jessie Buckley will make history for her home nation of Ireland if she wins the best actress award.

Buckley, 36, has already bagged a Bafta, Golden Globe and Critics Choice award for her role as the wife of William Shakespeare in Hamnet.

Capping the set with an Academy Award would make her the first ever Irish performer to be named best actress.

Buckley portrays William Shakespeare’s wife Agnes – historically known as Anne – in the film adaptation of Maggie O Farrell’s Hamnet, which follows the pair as they deal with the grief of losing their son.

The actress has said making Hamnet was a “life-changing experience” and she is “honoured” to be nominated in the Best Actress category for this year’s Oscars.

The Killarney-born performer continued her domination of awards season last month as she was awarded the Bafta for best actress for Hamnet and is strongly tipped to win the best actress Oscar.

Buckley previously said her role made her feel the “deep need” to become a mother.

She told British Vogue that embodying someone who had lost a child tapped a “deep need” in her to “find” her own.

Buckley tied the knot with her husband in 2023, and they welcomed their first child last year.

Earlier this month, she clarified she is a “lover of cats” following a backlash from feline fans who were upset she said she did not like them in a previous interview.

Appearing on Jimmy Fallon’s US chat show, Buckley said she even auditioned to be a cat once, and it was a “misconception” that she hated the animals.

Born in Killarney, Buckley spent five years studying at an all-girls convent school before going on to join the BBC talent show I’d Do Anything in 2008, aged 17.

The show documented the search for a new lead to play Nancy in the West End revival of the musical Oliver! with Buckley ending as runner up, losing out to Coronation Street star Jodie Prenger.

Buckley has revealed she went through a battle with an eating disorder and depression during her teenage years.

She went on to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (Rada) in London and graduated with a BA in acting in 2013.

Her stage career kicked off that same year with the star performing at Shakespeare’s Globe in a production of The Tempest before starring alongside The Holiday actor, Jude Law, in a West End production of Henry V.

Buckley later starred in the TV series adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War & Peace in 2016, portraying Marya Bolkonskaya, and made her film debut a year later in Michael Pearce’s psychological thriller Beast alongside Emma actor Johnny Flynn.

She later starred in Wild Rose (2018), a coming-of-age musical drama about a troubled single mother of two and former convict, Rose-Lynn from Glasgow, who tries to follow her dream of becoming a country singer – a role which won her the 2019 Scottish Bafta for best actress.

In 2020, Buckley starred alongside Jesse Plemons in the psychological thriller I’m Thinking Of Ending Things where a visit to her boyfriend’s secluded family farm changes everything she thought she knew about him.

She also has a string of TV credits including playing Lyudmilla Ignatenko in the 2019 HBO drama Chernobyl and later starred in the hit series Fargo as Oraetta Mayflower.

Her film credits include starring in The Lost Daughter (2021) alongside Olivia Coleman, a role which scored her first Oscar nod for best supporting actress, and the period drama Women Talking (2022) alongside The Crown actress Claire Foy about the true story of a group of women who begin to realise the extent of the sexual abuse they have endured by the men in their religious community after they start sharing their experiences with one another.

More recently Buckley reunited with Coleman in 2023’s Wicked Little Letters and starred alongside Four Lions star Riz Ahmed and The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White in the sci-fi romance Fingernails about a woman who begins to question her relationship despite a controversial test result certifying them as a perfect match.

In 2022 Buckley won the Laurence Olivier Award for best actress in a musical for her portrayal of Sally Bowles in Cabaret.