Awards season has a way of distorting reality. Careers are condensed into speeches, performances reduced to odds, and artists briefly transformed into narratives bigger than themselves. According to her father, Jessie Buckley is navigating all of it with a calm that feels both learned and instinctive.
Tim Buckley described his daughter’s recent Critics Choice Award win for Hamnet as “a fantastic honour,” while stressing that the surrounding noise, including mounting Oscars buzz, hasn’t changed her approach.
“We take these things in our stride down in Kerry, now! ’Tis no bother to us at all! We’re always hungry for a win, anyway, but we won’t count our chickens before they hatch,” he said, neatly puncturing any sense of inflated expectation.
Buckley’s win in California came on Sunday night, where she was recognised for her performance in Hamnet, the historical drama adapted from Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. During her acceptance speech, she paid tribute to director Chloé Zhao, co-stars Paul Mescal and Emily Watson, and made a point of mentioning her brother Killian, a moment her father clearly cherished.
“The joy that she had in receiving the award was infectious, enough,” he said. “And it was lovely as well that she brought up Killian.”
Buckley now heads into a crucial stretch of awards season. She’s nominated for Best Actress at this weekend’s Golden Globes and is widely tipped as a frontrunner for the Academy Award in March. If she were to win, she would become the first Irish woman to take home the Best Actress Oscar, a historic possibility Tim Buckley treats with studied restraint.
Reflecting on her previous Oscar nomination for The Lost Daughter in 2022, he recalled how unexpected it felt. “She got a nomination for The Lost Daughter… which kind of came out of the blue, and there was no campaign.” That experience, he believes, shaped her outlook. “I think she’s remained herself throughout it all.”
The awards circuit, he suggested, isn’t something she relishes. “It wouldn’t be her favourite thing now to do,” he said. “But she has to kind of psych herself up like a boxer before she gets out there.” Once she does, however, “she does me and the country proud.”
Perspective, he added, comes from home. Buckley’s husband and child help keep “it all into perspective,” ensuring the accolades don’t overwhelm the work itself.
Hamnet, which opens in cinemas on Friday, casts Mescal as William Shakespeare and Buckley as Agnes, his wife. Tim Buckley noted the irony, and pleasure, of two Irish actors playing “the most quintessential English roles,” joking, “We invade in our own little way!”
He also made a case for the big screen. “There’s nothing like seeing a film on the big screen,” he said, calling Hamnet “a lovely incentive to get into the cinema again.”
As for attending the Oscars himself? He was unconvinced. “It wouldn’t appeal to me, unless it was a nice Irish bar in a nice, dark corner!” The after-party, however, is another matter entirely.
