Jessie Buckley loves the ‘shadowy bits’ of her characters

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“flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org. This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross.”

The film Hamnet is nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Actress for my guest Jesse Buckley. Hamnet's other nominations include Best Picture, Best Director for Chloe Jow who's also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, along with Maggie O'Farrer, the author of the novel Hamnet, which the film is based on. Buckley plays William Shakespeare's wife, Anis Hathaway. Little is known about Shakespeare's real wife, the film is largely an imagined version of her.

What's true is that the couple's son Hamnet died at age 11 from the plague. In the film, he

catches it from his twin sister. Shakespeare has already left the couple's home in the country to go to London and work on writing and staging his plays and has promised to bring the rest of the family as soon as he settled and has a little more money. When Hamnet gets sick and it's clear

“his life is in jeopardy. Anis calls for her husband to come home, but he doesn't make it in time.”

Shakespeare and Hamnet don't get to say goodbye. Anis is left to experience the horror of her son's death without her husband. In this scene, when Shakespeare does return, she's angry that he came to late, but she also feels guilty that she didn't pay enough attention to Hamnet while she was caring for their daughter who survived the plague. Shakespeare is played by Paul Mescal.

I should have paid a more attention. I always thought she was the one to be taken away when all the

while was him. I was full. There's nothing I knew I could have done to save her. You did everything that you could. Well, I did. You weren't here. I would have caught my heart out and given it to him. I would have laid my life down the ground for him and no one would take it. I know. I don't know. You don't know. You weren't here. He died in agony. He was an agony. Anis. I ate an e-claw. I ate an e-claw. Anis. He was so scared and you weren't here.

Hamnet has become known for leaving a lot of people in tears. Buckley won a golden globe for her role on Hamnet. Other films which he received various awards or nominations include the lost daughter, women talking, beast, wild rose, and men. Her next film, the bride, a feminist take on the bride of Frankenstein, opens March 6th. On TV she was a star of season four of Fargo and a star of the HBO series Chernobyl. She won an Olivier Award, Britain's equivalent of

Atoni, for her performance in a revival of Cabaret. Hamnet is now playing in select theater's nationwide and is also available to watch streaming at home. Jessie Buckley, welcome to Fresh Sharon Congratulations on your Oscar nomination and your Golden Globe win. Thank you. Thank you so

“much for having me. My pleasure. What were you able to learn about Shakespeare's real wife?”

And how does that compare with how she's depicted in the movie? How you depict her in the movie? Well, I think before I read this book, what had been written about Shakespeare's wife was it wasn't great. You mean it wasn't positive or there wasn't a lot? No, it wasn't positive. I think she was kind of given the title of being a woman that had kept him back from his genius and I think what Miguel Fargo saw brilliantly did, not just with Anis and Shakespeare's wife,

but also with Hamnet. Their son was to bring these people who, in our imaginary world, filled Shakespeare and the plays that have lived forever and given them status beside this great man which is full and vibrant. In this imaginary version of her life, people think she must be part which because she was born on the woods and so was her mother. They and she knew so much about herbs and herbal medicine and got along with animals. She was a falconer. So we don't know how

true that is, right? No, but I think it's interesting, you know, I think what is so frightening

other that people feel need to call her a forest witch or a daughter of a forest witch or somebody that was too much against the society at the time and my experience of playing this

incredible woman was her uncompromising embodiment and connection to nature and her own elemental

nature. And I guess at that time it was kind of the beginning of puretism and capitalism and paganism was kind of becoming something scary and people were beginning to decipher themselves off like machines, you know, how you could work a land and create produce with something that at that time in history was becoming conscious in the culture and yet this woman was just deeply connected to nature. One of the producers, Pippaharis, is quoted in the production notes,

talking about how you embody the character of Anyes. She says about you, she's quite a wild child

in the sense that she's very much at one with nature. She's slightly mystical, she believes in the

“soul and the spirits and she's a really caring person. When you hear that does that sound like you?”

Um, yeah, uh, yeah, I mean, I grew up around a lot of nature. I grew up in southern Ireland in a town called Clareny, which has lots of mountains and lakes and um, we there was a lot of freedom and expression by just living in that place when we were younger. And I think when you grow up in a landscape like that, your mind and your soul is his wild, you know, things just grow because they want to grow. There's no planting or or or formula to the nature in that in that place.

And I think that was really informative to me as a child and still is. Getting back to that quote, um, do you believe in spirits and um, consider yourself a little mystical because I'd love to hear more about that if you care to share it.

“Sparits, I do. I believe in energy. I believe that like you have a conversation with somebody's”

energy and and spirit. Absolutely. And I think, um, even people who've passed that there is a spirit in the very memory of them that lives on. Um, and I guess in the mystical sense is like, I guess what that's making me think of is like, it's a bow curiosity, isn't it? It's a curiosity of of an unknown and a seeking. I don't, yeah, and I guess I like to live in that place is to be curious about and something unknown. One of the best known scenes in the movie is

when your son has just died and you're just like howling with grief and despair. And a wondering is that something that you rehearsed a lot or prepared for, or did you try to be spontaneous about it? Because like that's a scene that really brings out everyone's tears. Um, no, I didn't know that that was going to happen or come out. It wasn't in this script.

“I think really Chloe asked all of us to dare to be as present as possible.”

And of course leading off to, you know, you're aware that this scene is coming, but that scene doesn't stand on its own. By the time I'd met that scene, I had developed such a deep bond with Jackaby Jew who plays Hamlet and and Paul and Emily Watson and all the children. And we really

were a family. And Jackaby Jew who plays Hamlet is such an incredible little actor and an incredible

soul. And we really were a team. And I think we both recognize where we might go, but where that might end. We didn't know. And look, the death of a child is unfathomable. I don't know where it begins and ends. I out of order respect. I try to touch an imaginary truth of it in our story as best I could. But there's no way to define that kind of grief. I'm sure it's different for so many

right in front of me with this little boy. And that's what came out of that moment.

“You hadn't yet become a mother, but you did get pregnant, I think, like a week before Hamlet”

opened, do I have that right? I a week after I wrapped filming. Oh, okay. Yeah, that something was cooked. Were you trying or was that really a surprise that seems so like the timing of it just seems amazing? I wanted to become a mother for a long time. And schedules, life being a different places, work, you know, it was hard. And that was kind of like an a beautiful thing, but also an intense thing to kind of feel that in my own personal life beside this mother that I was living

inside and in anus. The thing I've realized becoming a mother is that it humbles you down

“to your knees and any idea you think of yourself in being a mother or becoming a mother on”

birth or any of it. I mean, good luck because it's never like that. It's always brings you on

a way more kind of while journey. I'm wondering if portraying the mother of Hamlet, you know, on the wife of William Shakespeare, spoke to you because you had just experienced the grief that a mother has on her 11-year-old son dies and now you were about to become a mother. So were you spoke by the thought a son can die, a child can die? I wasn't spooked. Not because I didn't think about it, but I don't know what are you going to do, you know, like lock yourself up and not kind of

you know, my work. I'm not scared to touch the shadowy bits. I like them. They like help me.

“I think my experience when I don't touch them is that they show up in a more destructive kind of”

bigger way. So actually the thing that this story offered me that brought me into this next chapter of my life as a mother was tenderness, you know, and that was a word and a feeling that I think I didn't know was what I was looking for and a mother's tenderness. It's it's ferocious, you know, to birth is no joke, to be born is no joke, and the minute something's born into the world,

you're always in the precipice of life and death. That's our path, you know, we have, we all know

we're going to head towards that destination, I guess. And I wanted to be a mother so much that that overrode the thought of being afraid of us. The director, Claude Jale, sent the cast to a coach who uses dream analysis as a tool for insights into who you are and who your character is. Did you find that helpful? Yeah, I actually introduced Claude to this woman that we worked with and I've used it as a way to create for a few years now. I find it so helpful. I'm not very good at

linear thoughts or projections and I found school very difficult because it was too linear and formulaic and I couldn't learn like that and you know, with characters and work it's the same. I don't want to project an idea onto the women that I play until I've lived beside them and then in them and I find dreams really curious things. And I, you know, when you open a book or you open this script and the world of that script begins to kind of reflect itself around you,

your unconscious does stir the waters towards that world and I find it a very interesting and useful tool to abstractly enter into an essence of of being rather than projecting an idea on top of them and I create so much from this way of working. I write, I collect pictures. I'm like a

Would you be willing to share an example of a dream that you found useful in making Hamlet or another

“film that you made? I remember when I was filming Hamless, I had a dream, I think it was leading”

up to the death scene. And I'm going to just give you, I can't remember totally, but, you know, and I just to say like dreams are the language of metaphors as well. So anyway, this dream, I remember being in an ocean and I knew that there was a little girl stuck under a rock at the bottom of the ocean and I knew I had to try and get her out and I was kept trying to swim down to this

place. And as I was swimming this huge stingray came and started to like basically the whole ocean

became the belly of a stingray and he was kind of devouring that world and I remember when we got into into shoot that scene, I definitely put that stingray somewhere in that room on that day.

“Do you see the stingray is being a metaphor for death, kind of taking over, consuming everything grief?”

I guess so, I don't know. I mean, it could be many different things from many people and I try not analyze it, I try and just let it be kind of free thinking, you know, of a free thought that can sometimes I have dreams, you know, like I had a dream three years ago and I read a script recently and that dream came like straight to the front of my mind and I was like, oh, this script is this dream and actually this is like something that I know I need to like

get very curious about this dream. What happens if I return to this dream and try and work on it once a week for six months, like will something get unwrapped? Just as an exercise, not for like any kind of anything, woo, woo, it's just curious isn't it? And it's also just to say it's not a new thing, like the surrealists were using it, Dali was using it, I'm pretty sure David Lynch used his dreams in his films as Fellini, there's this extraordinary Fellini book of all of his dreams and he's

created, it's this most beautiful book where all the characters that he's found in his dreams are all painted in this book and you can see them in like eight and a half and let's try to. So it's not a new tool, it's just something to get curious about. In addition to starring in Hamlet, you start in a new film called The Bride, which is Maggie Gillen Hall's take on The Bride of Frankenstein, like what if The Bride of Frankenstein was a feminist who spoke out about misogyny and

corruption, but she's also totally wild enough of control, really nasty. So it must have been, it must have been such a kind of shock from going to making The Bride to making Hamlet, because I

“think even though The Bride's opening later than Hamlet did, I think you made The Bride first?”

I made The Bride first, yeah. Oh, and also, you know, the Bride of Frankenstein, you're reanimated,

like you've died and you're brought back to life, like Frankenstein, you're as, you know, in Hamlet, that's all about a dead son, staying dead, living and kind of, living and kind of, yes, like Shakespeare reincarnates his song through the vessel of a story, which is what happens at that end, you know, is when she reaches out, she can touch the thing that she thought she'd lost, because her husband has created the greatest magic trick of her life. When her son dies,

it's so ginormous that she can't find him. Until that moment, when the vessel of a story can help you, yeah, touch the things that you can't hold by yourself. We need to take another break. So let me reintroduce you if you're just joining us, my guest is Jesse Buckley, and she stars and hamlet for what she won a golden globe and is nominated for an Oscar. We'll be right back. I'm Terry Gross, and this is fresh air. Support for NPR and the following message come from the

people, communities, and the planet flourish. More information is available at Hewlett.org. It's a fun read. It's also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week, and exclusive. So subscribe at WHy.org/freshair and look for an email from Molly every Saturday

“morning. So let's talk a little bit about music. You studied harp, and I think another instrument”

when you were young? Yeah, piano, clarinet, I was never very good.

I doubled in the saxophone for a second, too. But you did study singing, but became known for your singing early in your career. You've been in several musicals, including cabaret, and sometimes a little night music, two shows with like fantastic scores. So how did singing become your thing? Well, I grew up around a lot of music. My mom is a harpist and a singer, and my dad has

always been passionate about music, so it was always something in our house, and always something

“that was encouraged. And I think early on, I have very strong memories of seeing and hearing”

my mom sing in church, and this quite intense, mercurial conversation that would happen between her, the story, and the people that would listen to her, and at the end of it, something had been like cracked between them, and these strangers would come up with tears in their eyes. And I guess I saw the power of storytelling through my mom singing at a very young age, and that was definitely something that made me think I want to do that. You played the male lead, Tony, in West Side's

story, in a school production, in your conference school, right? Yeah. What was a like for you to play a male role in high school? I mean, I loved doing those productions in school, and it was an all-girl's conference school. And it was brilliant. I mean, the thing that decided for the girls from the men, or the women from the men in the productions, was the men wore French plots, and big French plots, you know, to keep their hair down. And big, huge red boxy suits with

“a tie. But it was brilliant. And I remember doing, when I did those shows, even then, it meant”

so much. I would want to go to the core of it. And if I felt I didn't do it just as I would kick myself, and the teachers were like, you're fine. Don't worry. But it was kind of, it was the thing I looked forward to the most, and it was great fun. You got your start. I somebody who was known outside of high school, when you were a contestant on the British TV singing competition, I do anything. And the goal was that theater producer Cameron Macintosh and songwriter Andrew Lloyd

Weber, we're going to stage a production of the musical Oliver, and the winner of the contest

was going to be the female lead Nancy. And so I want to play the first song that you did on the competition.

And this is a cover of the Iconteen Eternal Recording Riverity. Oh my God. Okay. Here we go. Terry. I'm here to write a song. I want to know you just the way I love the song. I'm here to know my love. Okay. I love you my life. You've got a deep mountain high. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I heard you laughing throughout all of that. What were you experiencing as you heard that?

You know, I look back at that time. And I mean, firstly, I thought it would take

a hundred years to peek behind the curtain and be part of an industry that I was so desperate to be part of. You know, I loved it. That's what I wanted to do. And all of a sudden at 17, I was there and I was standing in front of camera Macintosh and Andrew Lloyd Weber and I was getting to perform and and singing and I was so raw and ignorant and innocent but full of passion. And there is a lot of like joy in us, but also I think about that young woman and I think

God, you're so brave and just that compulsion and passion to be part of theatre was so huge in me back then. And I don't know if I be as courageous now to go and do something like that.

“But when I hear that, I'm like, go girl, that's what I think.”

One of the people on the panel of judges who were also coaches thought you were very raw, like you said, and wasn't confident that you would necessarily get any better. How did you take that criticism? Andrew Lloyd Weber and Macintosh liked you. Yeah, well, there was parts of the criticism which, you know, I think was true. I was raw. I hadn't trained. I had a lot to learn and to grow in, you know, I was only 17.

Let's still criticism can be crushing. But I think there was parts of their criticism which

“I thought I think was destructive and unfair when it became about like my awkwardness or,”

you know, they would say I was a masculine and send me to kind of a femininity school and and I shouldn't kind of a school. They send me to like go to Chicago to put heels on an lea tartan. How to walk in high heels, which was pretty humiliating to be honest. And I'm sad about that, because I think, you know, I was discovering myself as a young woman in the world and it wasn't fully

formed. And I've always felt, I'm not, I don't think any woman is. We're not just like the same.

I was different, you know, I was wild. I had a lot of feeling inside me. I could

“hard to keep my hands beside myself. You know, I had a lot of expression in me and I think to”

kind of criticize a body of a young woman at that time and to make her feel conscious of that was a lazy and I think boring. And as I've grown up, I, that's, you know, I, I think women are not, they were not just to be accepted into the world in one shape. I want all the shapes. I want all the stories. I want all the feelings. I want autonomy of ourselves to be as vibrant and full as a possibly can. So yeah, that was, that was hard, that bit. So your coach was

Andrew Lloyd Webber on the show. What did you learn from him? And was it helpful? I mean, he's been a very quiet but extraordinary support throughout, you know. And I think him and camera Macintosh and Barry Humphrey's really recognized a role flame that was to be nurtured. And camera Macintosh actually was the person who really introduced me to Shakespeare. After I, I finished, I do anything he called me and he very generously

offered to pay for me to go and do a four week Shakespeare course at Rada, which is kind of that's the Royal Academy of Traumatic Arts in London. And I'd studied Shakespeare at school, but I, you know, it was kind of intimidated by us. And I guess that gesture changed my life.

Because when I went and did that course, it was the first time I recognized myself as an actress

and recognized that I could do what I felt I needed music for in just a word because Shakespeare's

up until that moment, I thought that music was a vessel that could hold all my feelings until I'd met Shakespeare in that in that course. And it was significant. So both of them have been

very, very like essential to me discovering myself as an actress and what I want to say and what I want

to be and what I want to put out into the world. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jesse Buckley and she's nominated for an Oscar for her starring role in the film HamNet and she already won a Golden Globe for her performance in that film. We'll be right back. This is fresh air. There's one more song I want to play and this is from your starring role in Cabaret in a Western

production in England. And so you're playing the role that lies in Manelli played in the movie.

And it's a kind of iconic role and singing maybe this time is a really iconic performance. So I want to play your version of it and what you seem to like rethink the song a little bit and you build like Liza builds. But the end kind of like tones down and becomes more reflective in a way that I don't remember Liza doing it in the film. So let's hear the ending of the song.

“Everybody loves a winner. So nobody loved me. Lady piece of lady happy that's what I love to be”

all the odds are in life, favor. Something's bound to begin.

It's got to happen. It happens sometimes. Maybe this time maybe this time. I'm hearing someone so much more in control of her voice. They don't know what in your teenager and we're on this thing in competition. What are you here?

“Yeah, somebody who's grown and I think by the time I'd come to Cabaret, I had gotten to know myself”

more and lived more and worked more and was in command of my instrument and storytelling better than when I was younger. Why wouldn't you be? Why wouldn't I exactly? I'm only human. And actually but even in that you know, Cabaret was really such a trip. That character is a real trip. You get on that train at the beginning of the night and you do not get offered until the end. And what I hear in that song and what you're talking about in that ending, I hear somebody

trying to find hope trying to like be held. Every sentence starts with maybe. Maybe this time,

“maybe this time maybe. Maybe something's going to happen to me. I think what I discovered and”

playing this part and especially in that song and in the end is like what if she doesn't fully believe is? That hopes going to actually arrive. Like what if? What if it doesn't? What if she hasn't? She's like holding on for hope as much as she can until that end point and just a tiny

don't we all trade in that precipice in life? Help me and just one step in front of the other.

But like God I hope it won't fall between the cracks. Did acting bring out parts of your personality that you didn't know you had or maybe didn't know how to express or feelings you were to embarrassed you admit to or to inhibited to you know fully express. One thousand percent.

“I mean it's essential to me in that way. What did you learn about yourself from acting?”

I learned something about myself through the women that I play in every job that I do because they contain parts of me in an alternate state and space that maybe you know if I was to I'd have to go to therapy 10 hours a day, seven days a week. I was trying to actually you know

incubate the shadowy bits as I call them but you know through these incredible women that I've

been looking off to play I get to explore that and experience that and a lot of why I choose the roles that I do is to kind of meet those shadowy bits like Marika and women talking for example is she's tough she's hard she's like an armadillo and she was the one that I really aged me you know I remember when I got that script I was like 12 women talking in an attic how they what's that like what is that but she was you know the thing that kept itching away at

“me because I know that woman and she's not easy that's what I look for is like the crunchy bit”

the thing that's disobedient that's too much that's and whether that's you know even to have a

protagonist as a mother to bring the mother to the forefront and and encompass all of what it is to be a mother whether that's in last daughter or while roles or hamnet like let's give the full landscape of what it is to be a woman. If you're just joining us my guest is Jesse Buckley and she's nominated for an Oscar for her starring role in the film Hamnet and she already won a golden globe for her performance in that film will be right back this is fresh air. When you are making

the bride your forthcoming film inspired by the bride of Frankenstein written directed by

“Maggie Jillon Hall you were pregnant and had to hide your pregnancy on screen so how did you do it?”

Well I wasn't pregnant for the main shooting sequence but when we came back to do a re-shoot for something I was eight months pregnant so they just had to do it from the boobs up Terry it's like just the face the face was my only two to work from but I mean I really loved working when I was pregnant I thought it was pretty wild experience especially because I was playing Mary Shelley and I was talking about a monstrosity and here I was with two heartbeats inside me

and I you know becoming a mom and being pregnant did something I think for me my experience of it's so real that it really like focuses you to be I'm allergic to fake like I are to disconnection like I think since my daughter is common I know what that connection is and the real feeling of being in a relationship with somebody kind of soft-chat is I can't stomach it anymore or talking around the thing and as an actress very exciting to like recognize that in yourself and

and really take ownership of yourself you know I remember in filming that I was really close to giving birth you know and being like I have this amount of energy I will give you everything I got but I know I there'll be a time when I I cannot give you anymore and that's going to be the end of the day and actually that really focuses you on set you know and I think maybe when you're a younger you're so in in awe and reverence that you've been invited into this world which is part of

where you are at that moment but it's also good to put in some boundaries and focus your work

because I've shed ten yet layers of skin by loving more and and an experience thing life

in such a new way with my daughter I'm also scared to work again because you know it's hard to be a mother and to work that's like a constant tug because I love what I do and I I'm passionate and I want to continue to grow and learn and and fill those spaces that are yet to be filled and also be a mother and I think every mother can recognize that tug.

Do you think if you took a break along one do you have a fear that you'd be forgotten when you're

“ready to come back? No I don't feel afraid of that. You're just torn between what you should do”

you know like just become a full-time mother for a while or keep acting. I don't think I have to choose you know I really don't I think I'm glad to hear that it just sounded to me like you thought you needed to. No I just think it's an honest feeling you know I woke up this morning I haven't seen my daughter in four days and it hurts you know I miss her but I also I'm inspired to be around people that make me dream and imagine and and I I need to do what I do and I think I will be a

better mother to continue to be passionate about something in my life and show my daughter that you don't have to lose any part of yourself of course there is of course it's hard but it's also a beautiful thing to miss something like I missed I haven't filmed for nearly a year and I cannot waste like I I'm hungry to create again and my daughter will come with me you know she's she's seven months so at the moment she can travel with us and and it's a beautiful life and she

meets all these amazing people and I have a feeling that she loves life and that's a great thing

to see in a child and I hope that's something that I've imparted to her and her the short time

“that she's been on this earth is that you know life is life is beautiful and great and complex”

and alive and there's no part of you that needs to be less in your life you might have to work it out but it's like it's worth this well that's a nice note to end on so congratulations again on your Oscar nomination in your Golden Globe win for HamNet and thank you so much for coming on our show thanks for having me it's a it's a privilege Jesse Buckley is nominated for an Oscar for her starring role on HamNet it's playing in select theaters and is available for

streaming her next film the bride opens Friday to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights

“of our interviews follow us on Instagram at npr fresh air fresh air”

executive producer Sam Brigger our technical director and engineers are due bansom our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by phyllis miars and reable denado Lauren Krenzel Monique Nazareth Teresa Madden they are chowener Susan Ycundee and Abelman and Niko Gonzalez Whistler our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper your border shore rock directs the show our co-host is Tonya Mosley I'm Terry Gross support for npr and the following message come from the

William and Flora Hewlett Foundation investing in creative thinkers and problem solvers who help people communities and the planet flourish more information is available at hewlett.org