Jessie Buckley's Early Thriller Success Proved Her Star Power

The major events of awards season have started, and with them, the first winners who’ll be vying for the upcoming Oscars. Among the big names, a British actress is finally getting her deserved time in the spotlight. Starring in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, Jessie Buckley’s role as Agnes Shakespeare is putting her in the top spot for the Best Actress Academy Award. While this isn’t her first nomination, it is the one that’s generating more buzz. Recognition for Buckley is long-overdue, and all of her works are proof of it. In 2018, Buckley led The Woman in White, an adaptation of the Wilkie Collins novel of the same name. Mustering up the strength to portray the fierce Marian Halcombe, Buckley demonstrated her leading abilities in this miniseries. What at first seems a hybrid between a love story and a ghost tale, evolves into becoming a thrilling mystery with Buckley’s Marian at the very heart of it. Thus, in just five episodes, she crafts a remarkable character that will surely live on as part of her acting legacy. 'The Woman in White' Is a Thrilling Victorian Mystery That Keeps You on Edge Written by Fiona Seres and directed by Carl Tibbetts, the adaptation of The Woman in White excels in its storytelling technique. By going back and forth in time, the pieces of this intricate puzzle are given one by one to uncover a bigger mystery. There’s an initial encounter between Marian’s sister Laura (Olivia Vinall) and Walter (Ben Hardy) in which sparks fly. Walter then meets the titular woman in white, appearing as a ghostly presence that eventually proves to be alive and part of a bigger plot. Laura and Walter’s infatuation is short-lived, for she had already been betrothed to Sir Percival Glyde (Dougray Scott). What at first promised to become an idyllic marriage is soon exposed as a living nightmare. With the sisters caught in the midst of a misogynist conspiracy, Marian takes it to herself to save Laura and herself from the clutches of Sir Percival and his associate, Count Fosco (Riccardo Scamarcio). This look into the past mixes an engaging detective investigation with a legal battle that unravels the secrets of Sir Percival’s undoing. And though the ensemble cast shines throughout, it’s Buckley who stands out in this tale. Jessie Buckley Leads the Engaging Mystery of ‘The Woman in White’ With Passion From The Woman in White’s opening shot, Buckley is singled out as the core of the miniseries. Marian drives the whole story as a disruptor of the male-dominated times they’re living in. Buckley’s range is proven as Marian’s arc takes her from cheery, bright, and reliant, to fierce, indomitable, and independent. In only five episodes, the significant evolution works thanks to Buckley’s nuanced portrayal of the character. This progression is also achieved thanks to what Buckley communicates without speaking. Her expressions and body language alone transmit her nonconformity with the injustice that Laura and Anne, the actual woman in white, go through. Marian Halcombe follows a trend in the roles Buckley has been playing throughout her career. As a combatant of the male regime, the most obvious choice is Harper in Alex Garland’s Men, where she has to fight a very literal patriarchy in the modern world. But there are also characters in which her fierceness takes the spotlight, like Leda in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter, where she makes life-altering decisions that are reflected in her future self – played by the one and only Olivia Colman. Lastly, in the HBO limited series Chernobyl, as Lyudmilla Ignatenko, she embodies a vulnerable but willful woman who fights against the ruling institutions that have a total disregard for the lives of those affected by the Chernobyl incident.