Entertainment
“Hamnet” actress Jessie Buckley on how Shakespeare changed everything for her
She’s been called “the acting world’s best-kept secret.” But Jessie Buckley’s latest role, in the film “Hamnet,” may change that. As Rolling Stone put it, people “will be talking about Jessie Buckley’s performance for years.”
Buckley plays the wife of William Shakespeare (portrayed by fellow Irish actor Paul Mescal). Adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, it’s a fictionalized tale about the death of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet. It imagines the tragedy inspired him to write “Hamlet.”
Focus Features
“I just knew I had to go somewhere mentally, emotionally,” Buckley said of her work.
I said, “You have this fire inside you – that’s what we see on film.”
“I don’t know, do you?” she replied.
“I’d say so, in what I’ve seen, you see 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.”
She said when she started shooting the more difficult scenes, like the death of her child, she told her husband she needed to go away for two weeks. So, Buckley came to Hampstead Heath, a vast green space in London, where she’d go swimming each morning. “I just need to be in nature and start my day and wake up that way, and then go to the set and see what came out,” she said.
CBS News 
She says “Hamnet” director Chloé Zhao (an Oscar-winner for “Nomadland”) reminded her cinema is not just escapism. “Our jobs as actors and the storytellers are to touch the most heightened expressions that are too hard to hold on our own,” Buckley said. “I get to incubate the bits of us, myself, the shadow bits.”
“What are the shadow bits of you that came out for this role?” I asked.
“I’m not telling you!” she laughed. “You have to watch it and make up your own mind.”
“The sacred flame of star quality”
Her breakthrough role was playing a single mom just out of prison in 2018’s “Wild Rose.” Then, in 2022, Buckley got an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress in “The Lost Daughter.” Her other credits included “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” “Beast” and “Women Talking,” and the TV series “Fargo.”
She said, “I never in a million years thought I’d make a film.”
Because? “I didn’t have a TV ’til I was 15,” she said. “And it was exotic, like, it was in Hollywood. It wasn’t in Kerry.”
In rugged County Kerry, in Ireland’s southeast, Buckley grew up in an artistic family, playing harp, clarinet and piano. She sang and did school productions. But it was the British talent show, “I’d Do Anything,” that put her on a bigger stage – and in front of Andrew Lloyd Webber. He praised her, saying, “Jessie has the sacred flame of star quality.”
She lost that competition, but quickly landed theater roles. Her first Shakespeare performance was near the spot in London where Shakespeare’s early plays were first performed, at the original Rose Playhouse, built in 1587.
robbie jack/Corbis via Getty Images 
Shakespeare changed everything for her: “I think before, I felt like music was the only way to contain what was kind of 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,” she said.
Of acting opposite Mescal in “Hamnet,” Buckley said, “I absolutely adore that man. And from our very first chemistry read …”
“Chemistry read is to make sure you have chemistry?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she laughed. “I mean, it would be really depressing if I didn’t, wouldn’t it? I’d be like the only woman in the world who failed to find chemistry with Paul Mescal!”
The 35-year-old actor says she also found chemistry with Christian Bale for her next film, in which she plays the bride of Frankenstein’s monster. Directed by Maggie Gyllenhall, it’s genre- and expectation-bending. “It’s punk, it is proper punk,” Buckley said. “I remember when I read it first, it was like being plugged into an electrical socket.”
Warner Brothers 
I said, “Maggie Gyllenhaal referred to you as kind of a wild animal.”
“Hmm. Good,” Buckley said.
“Do you think there’s a truth to that?”
“I have a lot of life in me!”
That life and vitality that we now see on film is the journey that brought Buckley to London as a teenager. At the time, she says, she was in a dark place. “I had depression and I wasn’t very well,” she said. “And I wanted a lot from life. I was really hungry for it. And I felt like there was no place for that. And I think that’s when it imploded in on me, and when I got sick and lost myself, you know?”
“How did your deal with it?”
“I got help,” she replied. “I got therapy. Singing. I mean, I honestly think it’s kind of saved me. Something wasn’t alive then, let’s just say, like it is now.”
To watch a trailer for “Hamnet” click on the video player below.
WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with Jessie Buckley (Video)
For more info:
- “Hamnet” (from Focus Features) opens in theaters Dec. 12
- “The Bride!” (from Warner Brothers) opens in theaters March 2026
Story produced by Mikaela Bufano. Editor: Carol Ross.
Moviegoers got an unexpected treat this holiday season when an actor from the 1997 original made a surprise cameo in the latest Anaconda movie.
Jennifer Lopez appeared in the 2025 remake of Anaconda sending fans into frenzy.
Directed by Tom Gormican, Lopez made a tongue‑in‑cheek cameo as an exaggerated version of herself rather than reprising her 1997 role as Terri Flores.
Her appearance came at the end of the film.
She visited Doug (Black) in the scene and told him, “I saw your little movie, and I loved it. They’re making a new Anaconda movie, and I want you to direct it.”
Lopez’s cameo was kept secret until the premiere.
Only Ice Cube’s return as a version of himself was announced beforehand.
The reveal delighted fans who remembered Lopez’s breakout role in the 1997 original opposite Jon Voight, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, and Owen Wilson.
Gormican in another interview explained the decision to bring back original stars.
“We were always thinking that it would be fun to have the surviving members. So we just kept reaching out,” he shared.
The new Anaconda, starring Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Steve Zahn, Thandiwe Newton, Daniela Melchior, and Selton Mello, released December 25 in US.
- Ex-PM Najib charged with four counts of corruption.
- Former premier also faces 21 counts of money laundering.
- $4.5bn stolen; over $1bn make way to accounts linked to Najib.
KUALA LUMPUR: Jailed former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was found guilty of abuse of power on Friday in the biggest trial yet in the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, a ruling that could have significant political repercussions.
The judge had yet to deliver the full verdict and sentencing.
Malaysia and US investigators say at least $4.5 billion was stolen from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a state fund Najib co-founded in 2009 while in office. More than $1 billion allegedly made its way into accounts linked to Najib, who has consistently denied wrongdoing.
Najib has been charged with four counts of corruption and 21 counts of money laundering for receiving illegal transfers of more than 2.3 billion ringgit ($569.45 million) from 1MDB. He had consistently denied wrongdoing.
“The contention by the accused that the charges against him were a witch hunt and politically motivated was debunked by the cold, hard and incontrovertible evidence against him that pointed towards the accused having abused his own powerful position in 1MDB, coupled with the extensive powers conferred upon him,” Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah said in an ongoing reading of the verdict.
Najib could face maximum jail terms of between 15 and 20 years on each charge, as well as a fine of up to five times the value of the alleged misappropriations.
Najib, 72, has been in prison since August 2022, when Malaysia’s top court upheld a verdict convicting him of corruption for illegally receiving funds from a 1MDB unit. His 12-year jail sentence in that case was halved last year by a pardons board.
Link with fugitive financier
Najib last year apologised for mishandling the scandal while in office but had consistently denied wrongdoing, saying repeatedly that he was misled by 1MDB officials and the fugitive financier, Jho Low, about the source of the funds.
Judge Sequerah, in reading the verdict, had earlier said evidence had revealed Najib had an “unmistakable bond and connection” with Low, who acted as the then prime minister’s “proxy and intermediary” in 1MDB affairs.
Low, who has been charged in the United States for his central role in the case, denies all wrongdoing, and his whereabouts are unknown.
Najib has maintained he was misled by Low and other 1MDB officials into believing that funds deposited into his account were donations from the Saudi royal family.
But Sequerah said Najib’s argument was “implausible” and dismissed letters on the donations produced by Najib that allegedly originated from the Saudi royal family, saying they were not corroborated by evidence and were probably forgeries.
“The irresistible conclusion is that the Arab donation narrative is not meritorious … the evidence pointed unmistakably to the fact that the monies were, in fact derived from 1MDB funds,” Sequerah said.
Govt’s test
The verdict came just days after another court denied a bid by Najib to serve his jail sentence under house arrest — a decision that reignited tensions within current Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration.
Najib’s party, the United Malays National Organisation, campaigned against Anwar in a 2022 election but joined his coalition to form a government after the poll ended in a hung parliament.
Some UMNO leaders expressed disappointment with the decision to deny Najib house arrest and others were angered by social media posts by some members of Anwar’s coalition celebrating the earlier ruling.
Anwar on Tuesday called for calm, urging all parties to accept the court verdict with “full patience and wisdom”.
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor sent an emotional message to his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, after he was left out alone on a happy occasion.
On December 25, the York sisters joined King Charles and the extended members of the royal family at Sandringham, whereas their parents marked a sombre Christmas.
Andrew was photographed driving out of his current home, the massive Royal Lodge, which he and Fergie have to leave in the coming days.
In the clicked photos, the former Duke of York appeared visibly upset after his daughters decided to celebrate the event with the royals.
For the unversed, on October 30, Buckingham Palace announced that King Charles stripped his brother of his royal titles and honours.
Moreover, the former Prince was asked to leave the Royal Lodge, and a private accommodation at Sandringham has been arranged for him by the monarch.
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