-Our next guest is an Oscar-nominated actress
you know from films like "The Lost Daughter"
and "Wild Rose," as well as the HBO series "Chernobyl."
She stars in "Women Talking," which is in select theaters now
and everywhere January 20th. Let's take a look.
-Let's move on to the cons of leading.
-We the women will decide what happens in these meetings.
I'm not a two-bit failed farmer who must teach.
You have been invited here.
You have been invited here
to listen to what we have to say and write it down.
Nothing more. Just listen.
-Please welcome to the show Jessie Buckley, everyone.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Jessie, I'm so happy you're here. How are you?
-I'm great. -I'm glad to hear it.
This is a wonderful film. It's a very dark subject matter.
It's a true story based on a Mennonite community
where this group of women had to decide
after these acts of sexual violence,
are we going to stay in the community
or are we going to leave?
It's very specific, but the story feels very universal.
Was that something you felt you were all trying to do
when you were sitting in that barn together?
-Yeah, I mean we all wore socks and sandals
and had our legs really hairy and kind of got into it.
But, you know, there's a lot of things to be a bit angry about
at the moment as women.
You know, girls?
Yeah, so I guess there is -- And it was specific,
but I think the thing that Sarah did so brilliantly about it
was to make it universal
and to make it a universal conversation.
And, yeah, it was brilliant. -You mentioned Sarah.
That's Sarah Polley, the incredible director of this film.
And I've read a lot of interviews with her
and those of you in the cast.
And even though it was this dark subject matter, it did seem --
and I was happy to read it -- that you all also had
a great deal of fun making the movie,
which is the way it should be.
-[Laughing] Oh, we had so much fun.
And actually, I was, like, laughing at that clip of Ben.
Poor Ben Whishaw. I gave him an awful time on this.
And we're, like really good friends,
and he would be my Friday wife, which basically meant
that he went and drank wine with me every Friday.
Everybody needs a Friday wife.
I'm up to being somebody's Friday wife this Friday
if anybody -- if anybody wants.
-I think there will be a lot of takers.
-So we had lots of fun,
and, yeah, Rooney brought a fart machine onto set.
-See, that's very -- Rooney Mara is wonderful in this film.
And watching the film, it's surprising to me
that she would ever have had a fart machine on set.
-It's always the quiet ones.
[ Laughter ]
-That is true. -Silent but violent.
-Absolutely. -[ Laughs ]
-So it's filmed in a very rural area in this beautiful barn.
You actually -- You just sort of left London for the sort of --
the wilderness, I guess, a rural area you bought.
-Oh, right, yeah. I didn't know what you were going to say.
Yeah, I did.
-I'd make a terrible Friday wife.
-I don't think so. -You'd just sit drinking wine
being like, "What is he talking about?"
-Yeah, I moved out of London,
and I moved to a very, very old house
that has these mad witch markings over the fireplace,
and it's falling down, and you kind of, like, put it back up
with a bit of Pritt stick or something.
Just stay, stay! -Were they surprised
you wanted to buy it when they sold it to you?
Because you're not describing what sounds look a gem.
-It is a gem. It's amazing.
The people that we bought it from,
he'd lived in the village his whole life,
and he just fell in love with this house,
and he put all his last pennies towards buying this.
It would have been like an old farmer house,
you know, people who worked on the local farm, obviously.
[ Laughter ]
And he restored it exactly to what it was like in the 1500s.
So all these amazing kind of --
All the walls are the original paint,
like pig's blood and lime wash and all the old floors.
And it's so cool.
It's so cool to be in a house that's way older than you.
-Yeah, it is. That sounds very -- You --
When you were growing up, your father owned a guesthouse,
so this is a hotel of sorts, like an inn?
-Yeah, like -- [ Laughs ]
"Argh! You..."
-You would sort of hold the lantern and talk like a pirate?
-"Come in, come in!"
-Did you have -- This is in Ireland.
What were your -- Were your guests other Irish people?
Were they Americans? Who would come?
-We actually -- Because I lived in a town called Killarney,
which is a really beautiful, kind of, lake district,
lots of mountains, and a lot of Americans would come.
And it was so exciting. "The Americans are coming."
[ Laughs ]
And we'd, like -- We all had to help, you know,
because that was the family business,
and we'd bring them out breakfast.
And then if they were having dinner in the evening,
we'd all do a little show for them.
So there's these really embarrassing pictures of me
furiously Irish dancing, which I was crap at.
I was so bad at it.
I'm like way too, kind of, all over the place
to keep my hands by my side.
But we had a good time, yeah.
-Do you think that most Americans can't tell
when someone's crap at Irish dancing?
Do you think that you got away with it?
-I think we got away with it. -Yeah.
I also heard you were in a production
of "West Side Story" as a kid.
What -- Can you just talk us through --
What does an all-Irish "West Side Story"...?
[ Laughter ]
Like, how did that --
Do you try to effect an American accent,
or is it just Irish Sharks and Irish Jets?
-Irish dance. Irish dancing.
The Jets are like -- The Jets are called Jesus.
[ Laughs ]
Well, I went to, like, an all-girls kind of
Catholic school, so to divide the girls from the girls,
one of them -- I played Tony in "West Side Story."
So I was actually was wearing
a big red suit pretty much similar to this.
And they would kind of give us French plaits,
and for some reason, they used to, like, draw red dots
in the kind of corner of our eyes because they said
that the audience would think we were cross-eyed out there
if we didn't have these red dots.
-Wait. How would that work?
-I have no -- I don't know. I don't know.
I felt like, wow, yeah, I must put these red dots in the corner
of my eye if I'm going to be an actress.
[ Laughs ]
-Now I'm worried. I've never done that on this show.
Everybody at home must think I'm cross-eyed.
-Yeah.
-Yeah. [ Laughs ] Congratulations on the film.
It's really wonderful and beautiful,
and it's so nice having you here, Jessie.
-Aww. Thanks for having me. -I'm a big fan.
Jessie Buckley, everybody.
"Women Talking" is in select theaters now
and everywhere January 20th.
We'll be right back with Stephen Markley.