By Paul Salfen, AMFM Magazine
As awards season reaches fever pitch, one name is on everyone’s lips: Jessie Buckley. Her shattering, emotionally raw performance as Agnes—the grieving mother at the heart of Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet—has generated massive Oscar buzz, with critics and analysts already calling Buckley the frontrunner for Best Actress and, in many predictions, “the one to beat.”
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house at the Harmony Gold screening. Zhao’s hauntingly beautiful adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s bestselling novel—about the love, grief, and quiet resilience that many believe inspired Shakespeare’s Hamlet—has quickly become one of the most acclaimed films of the year. Ahead of its Thanksgiving theatrical release, I sat down with the Academy Award®-winning director and her luminous star to talk tears, village vibes on set, and why the circus of awards season isn’t as glamorous as it looks.
Paul Salfen: I had to wipe tears away before the lights came up at Harmony Gold. Are you seeing that reaction a lot?
Chloé Zhao: It’s not bad! [laughs]We’re happy. We were just responding to how we were feeling.
Jessie Buckley: Yeah, and sometimes with subject matter this heavy you have to keep it light on set. But honestly? I had the time of my life. We were a village—literally worked and acted as a village. Such an incredible group of humans.
Salfen: Awards season is in full swing. How are you both handling the whirlwind—and Jessie, does the Best Actress buzz add extra pressure?
Zhao: There’s pressure, for sure. But it’s easy to be cynical about this stuff. At the end of the day we’re traveling circus people. Sit in any awards-show room and really look around—we’re all just little freaks who were pretty lonely growing up and then found each other.
Buckley: Exactly. Now we get paid to come together and hang out with friends we rarely see. My life outside of work is very simple, so it takes me a minute to catch my breath in these rooms. Sometimes I sit in silence and do it badly [laughs], but mostly I just feel proud to be part of this film and to celebrate everyone else who’s made something extraordinary. We’ve done it. We made the thing. That’s all that matters.
Salfen: So many young actors and filmmakers look up to both of you. What advice would you give someone wanting to follow in your footsteps?
Buckley: You have to go on a ruthless journey to get to know yourself—especially the uncomfortable bits. That’s where the discovery is. Our job is to become more human so we can allow audiences to feel things they might not feel in everyday life. No masks. Distill yourself right down to the bottom of your boots.
Zhao: Same. And right now I have a four-month-old baby, so if I can just be here in this moment, I’m doing great. Get into the river—it’s all good.
Buckley: [The baby] grounds you. The danger in all of this is you can get too high on the “spirit” and then be scared to come down. I very diligently allow myself the natural depression—not in a clinical way, but that downward motion after the highs—so I don’t crash later.
Salfen: Chloé, we’ve been fans since your SXSW days. We knew you could do this.
Zhao: Thank you. And thank you for playing Max Richter’s Sleep before the screening—I call every theater and beg them to do that!
Buckley: We even had Sleep playing on the red carpet in London instead of the usual music. It was wonderful.
As the conversation wrapped, it was clear: Hamnet isn’t just a film about Shakespeare’s imagined grief—it’s a deeply human story elevated by a performance many are already calling one of the greatest of the decade.
Hamnet, directed by Chloé Zhao and starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, arrives only in theaters this Thanksgiving. Bring tissues—and maybe start engraving that Oscar.
