JESSIE BUCKLEY

Catapulting to fame over the last five years, instinctive Irish actor Jessie Buckley has wowed in films (Wild Rose, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Men) and TV (Chernobyl, Fargo S4). She was Oscar-nominated for The Lost Daughter, won a Laurence Olivier award for Cabaret and now she's spewing wild profanities at Olivia Colman in hilarious period comedy Wicked Little Letters.....

I FEEL LIKE I'VE MADE A NICHE OUT OF FALLEN WOMEN. THE ANTI-LADY IS WHAT I'VE BEEN DRAWN TO...

Jessie Buckley is telling Total Film to fuck off. ‘You’re a fucking eejit,’ she spits.

Thankfully, the outburst is prompted. In the 34-year-old actor’s latest film, Wicked Little Letters, Buckley plays Rose Gooding, a rowdy Irish migrant living in the quaint English seaside town of 1920s Littlehampton. Rose, a single mum, makes eyebrows soar and curtains twitch with her foul mouth and boisterous behaviour, so is naturally the prime suspect when her pious neighbour, Edith Swan (Olivia Colman), receives anonymous letters addressing her as a ‘fucking old bag of shit’ and worse. The constant stream of inventive invective is hilarious, and attains a certain musicality when delivered in Buckley’s native brogue.

‘It’s so delicious,’ she agrees when TF apologises for embracing stereotypes but suggests that the Irish make an artform of cursing. So what’s her own favourite swear? ‘I mean, “fuck off” is pretty good,’ she grins, and it indeed sounds great when delivered with the oomph she musters. ‘“Eejit” is such a great word. It isn’t that bad but it makes me laugh. “You’re a fucking eejit.” What is that? It’s like something a leprechaun would say!’