Reflecting on Jessie Buckley’s journey through struggle and success, writer Jenny Sanders shows how performance became both her escape and a path toward healing. She ultimately points readers toward a deeper refuge in God, where lasting strength and peace can be found beyond any stage or spotlight.
The Oscars are over for another year and now we have the opportunity to either scurry around catching up on the latest film award-winners, or wait until they come up on one of the screening platforms so we can stay at home and watch them in our PJs.
The big winner this year was Jessie Buckley. As predicted, she won the coveted Oscar for Best Actress in the much publicised film, Hamnet, directed by (already) Award Winning director Chloé Zhao. The movie is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s fiction novel of the same name which explores the death of Shakespeare’s son in 1596. At the age of eleven, young Hamnet’s sister, Judith caught the plague but he was the one who lay next to her and lost his life. The ensuing grief of both his parents focuses on the consequential strain in their relationship and how that loss influenced William’s writing of Hamlet.
Jessie Buckley had already won a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Critics Choice Movie Award, a BAFTA, and a Golden Globe for her role, so the Oscar was almost inevitable.
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If you watched the television show, I’d Do Anything back in 2008, you may remember her competing for the role of Nancy in a production of Oliver. Despite a rip-roaring voice, she only came second and endured some challenging personal comments that she found difficult to live with.
Born in 1989, in Killarney, Co Kildare, Jessie grew up with her four younger siblings in a guesthouse run by her poet father.
Born in 1989, in Killarney, Co Kildare, Jessie grew up with her four younger siblings in a guesthouse run by her poet father. The children, apart form helping with serving in the business, also entertained the guests. Her mother was a trained singer and knew how to tell a story through song. Jessie absorbed all this and began to feel the thrill of hiding behind a persona, alongside the buzz of channelling her emotions to make a connection with an audience.
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Jessie was honest about her struggles when she spoke to Lauren Laverne last month on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. She has been in therapy since the age of seventeen. Even while she appeared in the Saturday night show, she was suffering from depression and found some of the comments brutalising, feeling that the contestants were treated as commodities. She developed an eating disorder but found a pathway to recovery through being on the stage. Her love of music and theatre became her lifeline as she discovered how her vulnerabilities could be poured into her acting. The power of performance gradually gave her the strength to recover as she realised that if she couldn’t find a way out of the damaging spiral, acting and singing wouldn’t be possible. She now calls them, ‘essential’ for her mental health. Performing proved to be bigger than the inner darkness and a refuge or escape from the things that troubled her; a place where her creativity could flourish.
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What are our coping mechanisms? Where do we take refuge or find escape from life – are we even supposed to?
What are our coping mechanisms? Where do we take refuge or find escape from life – are we even supposed to? In John 17, Jesus said that He was in the world but not of the world and prayed that would be true of us too. We need not escape from somewhere that God has placed us – He will equip us for everything He’s asked of us – but neither do we need to be over burdened and crushed by it.
The Psalmist is clear: ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble’ (Psalm 46:1). When life feels overwhelming and we’ve taken on disproportionate and inappropriate responsibility for things (none of us has the means or mandate to solve the problems in the Middle East, stop Putin’s war or fix the cost of living crisis), we can take refuge in our faithful God and the watertight promises He has made. Those are more solid, more tested and tried than any acting role; more substantial and enduring than any award or trophy.
Let’s pray that Jessie Buckley finds the solid gold in Jesus’ invitation to come to Him, and discovers the peace that passes understanding (Philippians 4:7) which is available to all os us, off stage as well as on it.
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