BACKSTAGE — One of the best tricks an actor can have in their arsenal is the ability to lean into a character’s contradictions—to play into the shades of imperfection and the hypocrisies that make them more human. To that end, Jessie Buckley is one of the most dynamic and natural on-the-rise talents working today.

A look at her latest trio of screen projects is all the proof you need. In Charlie Kaufman’s adaptation of Iain Reid’s “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” she plays a buoyant romantic lead who’s losing the thread of her reality. On the fourth season of Noah Hawley’s “Fargo,” she plays Oraetta Mayflower, a nurse-turned–“angel of death” with an appetite for euthanizing her patients. And embodying a younger version of Olivia Colman, she stars in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut, “The Lost Daughter,” as Leda, a scholar and mother of two for whom motherhood is an unnatural fit. (Buckley received BAFTA and Academy Award nominations for the performance.)

Her back-to-back breakouts in 2017’s “Beast” and 2018’s “Wild Rose” helped set the stage for these projects, showcasing Buckley’s ability to play a woman torn between assumed responsibility and her own desires. “She’s just the fucking best,” Gyllenhaal says of working with Buckley, calling her an “artistic sister.” “I saw ‘Wild Rose,’ which is why I wanted her to be in the movie. She’s obviously her own formidable artistic force, but she reminded me a little bit of me. I find her endlessly interesting and inspiring.”

THR — Jessie Buckley, having just nabbed a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for her role in The Lost Daughter, is a haunted mess in the final teaser trailer for Alex Garland’s Men, which was released Wednesday morning. Written and directed by Garland, who helmed Ex Machina and Annihilation, the A24 horror pic follows a young woman, Harper, played by Buckley, who goes on a solo vacation to the English countryside after the death of her ex-husband.

Harper just wants to be left alone. But from her first walk through the surrounding woods, she senses she is being pursued. What begins as a simmering dread becomes a nightmare where Harper sees apparitions of a character played by Rory Kinnear, in a churchyard and then a haunted house. Those sightings ignite Harper’s darkest memories and deepest fears in Garland’s feverish, shape-shifting horror film. “Why are you doing this!” the young woman screams out at one point in the trailer.

A24 will release Men, which has the poster tagline “What Haunts You Will Find You,” on May 20, 2022. The film’s cast also includes Paapa Essiedu, star of Gangs of London and I May Destroy You.

The river path is bustling with activity this afternoon. Geese honk, narrowboaters tend wood fires, and in a car park that borders the water a man stands alone striking golf balls into a bucket. Buckley, dressed in torn jeans and a tightly fitted beret, stomping through puddles in her felty shoes, fits in well with the general chaos and eccentricity of the scene. At one point she falls into conversation with a bearded older man in a T-shirt who staggers by, recognises her County Kerry accent, and wonders (of the beret) why anybody from that lovely part of Ireland would want to “masquerade as a Frenchwoman”. Buckley hoots with laughter. The pair of them wind up exchanging endearments in Irish.

Listening to her chat, I realise that it’s possible to have watched through many hours of Buckley’s consistent and excellent acting work without having met this true Irish persona at all. She played a Glaswegian in her breakthrough film, Wild Rose, in 2018. Afterwards she went gravelly, English and posh in 2019’s Judy. That year she was allowed to do a generalised Irish brogue in the ensemble drama Chernobyl, but her two biggest roles from 2020 (in the TV drama Fargo, and in Charlie Kaufmann’s movie I’m Thinking Of Ending Things) required she go American. Happily, in Buckley’s next bit of work, a filmed version of Romeo & Juliet that was produced by the National Theatre and will soon broadcast on Sky, we get something close to the realer thing – a Kerry-accented Juliet, vital and quirky as Buckley herself, and perfect foil to the English actor Josh O’Connor as a hunched, repressed Romeo.

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Last Friday, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” debuted on Netflix, which was a critical and public success. Jessie was one of the great highlights of the film, having her acting as Lucy, Louisa, Yvonne… let’s stay with ‘Young Woman‘, widely acclaimed. I can say that the feature film, in addition to opening many doors for Jessie and bringing a lot of recognition to her, is among the best of our favorite actress. It needs, if possible, a prior reading of Ian Reid‘s book or a very open mind so that there are no hasty interpretations and judgments. Finally, check out Jessie’s screen captures in the film in our gallery:

           

In 2014, Jessie starred in the first episode of the second season of the British series Endeavor entitled ‘Trove‘ as Kitty Batten. On the story chapter, four months after DC Endeavor Morse’s involuntary leave of absence, he returns to the force and a case that unites an unidentifiable corpse, an enigmatic note, and the theft of medieval artifacts – seemingly unrelated cases as fractured as Morse’s state of mind after his terrifying brush with death. Check out the screen captures in the gallery: