BREAKING: Former Tipperary student and celebrated Hollywood actress appears on Late Late Show

Celebrated Hollywood actress and former Thurles Ursuline student Jessie Buckley appeared on the Late Late Show on Friday night alongside director Maggie Gyllenhaal, whose upcoming film The Bride! features Buckley in the titular role of the Bride of Frankenstein opposite Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s Monster.

Buckley is currently in the midst of awards season and is the favourite for this year’s Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Hamnet, directed by Chloé Zhao and based on the novel by Irish author Maggie O’Farrell.

Speaking to host Patrick Kielty about what life is like at the moment, Buckley spoke about how motherhood has changed her outlook, saying she feels grateful and that it puts everything into perspective. She said being a new mum is like being born into a new identity and admitted that some mornings she wakes up not knowing who or where she is, but feels lucky to have incredible people around her.

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During the interview, Gyllenhaal explained that the inspiration for The Bride came after she saw a man with a Bride of Frankenstein tattoo covering his forearm at a party. After rewatching the original film she realised the character only appears briefly and does not speak, which led her to wonder about the story from the Bride’s perspective rather than the monster’s. She said she always had Buckley in mind for the role and could not imagine anyone else playing it. Buckley described the role as transformative and said the love story at the heart of the film opened her emotionally and helped inform her performance in Hamnet.

Kielty noted how difficult the film is to describe, with Buckley saying it is a love story that contains tragedy but also hope and offers a new language and possibility. Gyllenhaal added that the film deliberately moves beyond traditional genre boundaries and that storytelling should not be limited by expectations of whether something is a comedy, thriller or horror. She said that when women are given the opportunity to direct films at this scale, the creative language can be different and more exciting.

With the Oscars approaching, Buckley confirmed that support from home will be strong and said her family will be travelling to attend, describing how her brother recently even made a long journey from the Arctic to be present at the BAFTA awards.

She became visibly emotional during the show when a video message from students in her old school in Kerry praised her as a role model, responding that she feels the same about them and believes they are the future.

The Bride arrives in Irish cinemas on March 6, with early reactions from its world premiere praising the film as ferocious, funny, chaotic, romantic and fuelled by another knockout Jessie Buckley performance.

The film marks the second directorial feature from Gyllenhaal, who is best known for her acting work in The Dark Knight, Frank, Adaptation and Donnie Darko. Her directorial debut The Lost Daughter also starred Buckley alongside Irish actor Paul Mescal, who appears opposite her once again in Hamnet.

Beyond these recent roles, Buckley has built an impressively curated body of work with standout performances in I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Beast, Men and Chernobyl. She has also recently been announced to star in auteur filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher’s upcoming film Three Incestuous Sisters. It is a remarkable filmography for the Kerry native and one that many in Thurles would like to think was shaped, at least in part, by her time in school there.