EXCLUSIVE: Radar Dives into the Background of the 'Actor's Actor' Set to Win Best Actress at This Year's Oscars — Including Why She Was Left Feeling 'Brutalized' and 'Unwomanly' By TV Talent Show

Buckley, an Irish actress raised in Killarney, County Kerry, has swept precursor ceremonies for the Academy Awards following her portrayal of Agnes Shakespeare in Hamnet, the film adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's much-admired novel about grief, loss, and endurance.

The drama charts Agnes' devastation after the death of her son during a plague outbreak, and has positioned Buckley as the season's frontrunner for acting gongs after years spent quietly building a formidable body of work across stage and screen.

At the recent Critics' Choice awards in Santa Monica, Buckley appeared calm rather than startled as she collected the best actress prize for her work in Hamnet, despite also insisting she felt like "a rabbit in headlights."

During her acceptance speech, she bypassed the expected roll call of agents and relatives and instead reflected on the Lascaux cave paintings in France, praising the earliest humans who had "decided to go with fire and minerals into the darkest parts of the cave to tell their stories," using it as a metaphor for artistic bravery.

To prepare for her role in the new movie Hamnet, which includes an already famous scene when Agnes realizes her son has died in her arms and releases a raw, wordless howl, Buckley temporarily moved out of her home in Norfolk, England, and into a hotel near the Hertfordshire studio, isolating herself to concentrate on the moment.

Chloé Zhao, the film's director, described the take that made the final cut as something that "came from something beyond past, present and future".

Buckley, now dubbed "the actor's actor," has played down any mysticism.

She said, "It just came out. It didn't feel like a scream that was ancient, but a grief that we all can probably recognize in parts of our lives."

Born into a creative household with a poet father and a classically trained musician mother, Buckley was educated at a convent school in Tipperary from the age of 11, an experience she has since described as stifling.

At 18, she moved to London and failed to secure a place at drama school before finding sudden exposure on the BBC talent show I'd Do Anything.

The show was a search for a new Oliver and Nancy for an Andrew Lloyd Webber revival of Oliver!, and Buckley made it to the final before losing to British soap actress Jodie Prenger.

The scrutiny proved punishing.

Buckley later said the experience left her feeling "brutalized" and criticized for not being "womanly."

But she regrouped, trained at Rada and emerged as a striking screen presence in films including Beast, Wild Rose, Women Talking and The Lost Daughter, often playing women whose apparent compliance masks fury and defiance.

That tension now reaches its apex in Hamnet, a performance many see as both a culmination of Buckley's talents and a breakthrough for the rising star.

Buckley avoids social media and speaks sparingly in public, framing her work as an attempt to counter what she calls a culture of emotional detachment.

With roles ahead, including in The Bride!, and with major trophies looming, her sudden ubiquity feels less like overnight success than an overdue reckoning.