Reality TV to Oscars history: The rise and rise of Jessie Buckley

In an unusually unpredictable Oscars race, there is only one moment experts agree is a dead cert - Jessie Buckley, on stage once again, to collect the award for best actress.

The big honours started with a Critics Choice award in January. A Golden Globe followed, then a BAFTA, and most recently, a statuette at the Actor Awards.

Buckley is the only acting nominee to take home all four this year, and she has picked up other smaller awards, too. The Oscar, it seems, is hers to lose.

Latest updates - The Oscars Gold Derby, the LA based authority when it comes to awards predictions, rates her chance of winning at an almost unbeatable 97%. "It's really been a crazy award season, it's been pretty unprecedented," says Debra Birnbaum, the site's editor-in-chief.

But Buckley, she says, "is a sure thing... a pretty safe bet".

If Buckley does win, she will make history - the first Irish actress ever to take home the award. The 36-year-old is being recognised for her portrayal of Agnes, the wife of Shakespeare in Chloe Zhao's Hamnet.

The film chronicles the couple's grief following the death of their young son, and puts the bard, played by Paul Mescal, in the backseat as Agnes's story takes centre stage. Buckley's raw, emotive performance has moved audiences to tears.

In a sea of A-list Oscar nominees, including two-time winner Emma Stone, critics have singled her out as "one of the finest actresses of her generation". "To be in a room with all those incredible artists, that, for me, is the greatest thing," Buckley told Sky News last month, speaking about her awards and nominations.

"That and being a mom." The actress gave birth to her first child, a girl, last year, and she has paid tribute to her in her speeches so far. "I'd like to share this with my daughter," she said of her BAFTA.

"I promise to continue to be disobedient so that you can belong to a world in all your mad, complex wildness as a young woman." This is Buckley's second Oscar nomination; her first was for best supporting actress, for her performance in The Lost Daughter, starring Olivia Colman, in 2022. She has also starred in other Oscar-nominated films, such as Women Talking, alongside Rooney Mara and Claire Foy, and Judy, opposite Renee Zellweger, and won several awards for her leading performance in the West End revival of Cabaret.

But she has been quietly honing her talents since she was young, growing up in Killarney, Co Kerry. Her rise to fame came when she was a teenager, appearing on the BBC reality show I'd Do Anything, which sought to find an unknown lead to play Nancy in the West End revival of the musical Oliver!, in 2008.

Buckley came second, but continued to pursue her love for the stage and screen. She went on to appear in series including Taboo and The Last Post, before breakout roles in British films Beast and Wild Rose, and the critically acclaimed HBO/ Sky series Chernobyl.

Back in 2019, when Wild Rose was released, Buckley said she grew up without a TV at home until she was "about eight or nine.