The West End actress finished in second place on the show which saw contestants compete to win the role of Nancy in the West End production of hit musical Oliver!
Hamnet star Jessie Buckley says she was ‘brutalised’ and faced ‘unfair objectification’ as she lifted the lid on her experience of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s TV talent show I’d Do Anything.
The actress was just 17 when she appeared on the reality show, which saw contestants compete to win the role of Nancy in the West End production of hit musical Oliver!
Jessie, who is now 36, finished in second place behind Jodie Prenger. She says she struggled during the competition, admitting she ‘wasn’t well’.
Jessie told Vogue magazine: “I was 17. I was in a moment of discovery. As women, it’s such unfair objectification … Back then, I was just trying to move into a space of myself.
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“I really hope that a 15, 17, whatever-age woman never has to be brutalised quite like what happened on that show. But I didn’t recognise it fully at the time. I just felt it, which was difficult.
‘It’s bonkers, in hindsight. I was just like: ‘Oh my God. I get to peek behind this curtain already. I get to sing. I get to be part of this industry that I really was hoping I could be part of.'”
Jessie says that behind-the-scenes, she was ‘was not well fully’ and felt ‘depressed’. She also says she suffered from ‘a lot of body shaming’.
Jessie was offered the chance to be Jodie’s understudy in Oliver! after the competition but she turned it down. The RADA graduate went on to star in BBC productions such as War and Peace, Taboo, Beast and Wild Rose, in which she played an aspiring country music singer. She was nominated for a BAFTA as a result before going on to land further roles in HBO miniseries Chernobyl and FX’s Fargo. In 2021, she starred as the younger part of Olivia Colman’s character in The Lost Daughter.
In December last year, Jessie became a mother after giving birth to her first child. She kept her pregnancy under wraps until her bump was showing as she attended a red carpet event back in April.
She didn’t say when she gave birth or share any more details, such as her baby’s name, but did confirm she’d welcomed a little girl with her husband, who she also keeps out of the spotlight.
The fiercely private pair married in 2022 and he is only known as Freddie. He is reportedly a mental health professional who is based in North London. They are thought to split their time between homes in London and Norfolk.
Speaking on The New York Times Modern Love podcast , Jessie shared: “Everyone is doing great. I mean, everything is different. It’s intense, but I just love it. Love it so much.”
Though the tot is only a few months old at most, Jessie said: “I really can see her little personality starting to come through. I see this life-force in her and determination. I hope she loves life as much as I do.”
She also shared how she fell pregnant just after filming for her movie Hamnet wrapped. In it she plays a grieving mother – which she says brought on an intense need for her to get pregnant in real life.
Hamnet tells the story of the marriage between characters Anne Hathaway, played by Jessie, and William Shakespeare, played by her co-star Paul Mescal, and the impact the death of their 11-year-old son has on their relationship – which inspired Shakespeare’s famous play, Hamlet.
Revealing how the film impacted her own personal life, Jessie said: “I’m not surprised I got pregnant a week after I finished filming because I had coaxed… it was also quite intense to have that need while I was in this place of absolute mother and it not be a real thing yet.
“There were moments where it broke my heart because I was living this altered world, where I was absolutely that. Well, just be patient…
“I think when I was filming Hamnet, I deeply wanted to become a mother myself. And it was such a gift to move through this woman and her motherhood and her love and her loss before I became a mother myself.
“I think even getting pregnant, and throughout my pregnancy, how I was thinking about what kind of birth I wanted and how I would be autonomous in choosing that as much as I could was very empowering.”
Discussing what she hoped to impart onto her little one as she grows up, Jessie added: “I think the thing I can hope to impart to her, and I’m sure she’s going to go on her whole own trajectory – and she should – is we have one life.
“There’s always going to be things in our life that are going to make us doubt or be afraid or feel like it would be safer to be smaller in some way.
“I see this little life that’s so new, but so full and so untarnished by an idea or a projection of what we’re supposed to be. I just hope that if I can pass anything onto her in the way that my mother’s has passed on to me is that all the parts of you are not too much.
“‘The world needs all of you, and that means incubating the struggles, is like living through the struggles, the shadows. The things that are going to challenge you, you have to metabolise it and incubate it. And there’s no too-muchness. It’s only to be lived fully.”
Andrew Lloyd-Webber and the BBC have been contacted for comment.
