Video: Jessie Buckley Discusses Hamnet and Stage Roots

Olivier Award winner Jessie Buckley is no stranger to Shakespeare. The performer, who rose to prominence as a contestant on the BBC's I'd Do Anything, has taken on some of the playwright's most famous heroines like Juliet, Miranda, and Perdita. 

Now, she is playing the role of the playwright's wife, Agnes, in the new film Hamnet, and recently visited CBS Sunday Morning to talk all about it. "I have fire, but I tell you what Hamnet gave me, which I also was looking for, was tenderness. And sometimes it's just as strong as fire," said the actress of the project.

In the segment, she also looked back on her relationship with Shakespeare and how it changed her outlook on the depths of performance. "I think before [Shakespeare], music was the only way to contain what was wanting to come out. And then Shakespeare's words and his worlds were so titanic that it just made me realize how powerful words could be."

Check out the full segment, where Buckley talks about working with her co-star Paul Mescal and returns to The Rose Theatre, which was where she landed her first Shakespeare role.

Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, starring Paul Mescal, Olivier Award-winner Jessie Buckley, Emily Watson, and Joe Alwyn, will receive a limited Thanksgiving release on November 27th, ahead of a wide release beginning on December 12th. It previously won the People’s Choice Award at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.

The movie tells of the love story between William (Mescal) and Agnes (Buckley) Shakespeare during the 16th century, along with their beloved son Hamnet. But before too long, tragedy strikes the family, resulting in heartbreak that serves as inspiration for his play Hamlet.

Hamnet is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 New York Times bestselling novel, which has sold 2 million copies in the UK and US and has been translated into 40 languages. O'Farrell worked with Zhao on the film's screenplay. The book has also been adapted for the stage by Lolita Chakrabarti, and was recently played in the West End in a production directed by Erica Whyman. 

In a Vanity Fair article, it was revealed that the movie recreates Shakespeare’s Globe theater during 1600, the year in which the original production of Hamlet takes place in the film. “For the first two days in the Globe, I was genuinely lost. I felt untethered,” said Buckley. “You’re at the mecca of where Hamlet is born—everything that we’ve gone through was culminating to this point.” Read the full story here and check out photos of the theater here.

Oscar-nominee Jessie Buckley was most recently seen onstage in the West End production of Cabaret, for which she won an Olivier Award.  Buckley first rose to recognition as a finalist on the Oliver! reality competition series, I'd Do Anything. She has been seen on the West End in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music and at The National Theatre in Romeo & Juliet. Her notable screen credits include Wild Rose, The Lost Daughter, Women Talking, and Fargo.