'Hamnet' star Jessie Buckley recalls being 'brutalized' in teenage

Jessie Buckley is recalling the mistreatment she received as a contestant in Andrew Lloyd Webber's TV talent show I'd Do Anything.

Buckley joined the show in 2008, when she was only 17. The competition would give the winner the role of Nancy in a West End production of hit musical Oliver!

She finished second and was given the offer to be winner Jodie Prenger’s understudy, which she declined. 

The Hamnet star told Vogue magazine: "I was 17. I was in a moment of discovery. As women, it's such unfair objectification ... Back then, I was just trying to move into a space of myself."

"I really hope that a 15, 17, whatever-age woman never has to be brutalised quite like what happened on that show. But I didn't recognise it fully at the time. I just felt it, which was difficult,"

Jessie remarked, "It's bonkers, in hindsight. I was just like: 'Oh my God. I get to peek behind this curtain already. I get to sing. I get to be part of this industry that I really was hoping I could be part of.'"

“And I look back at it and I feel like: 'God, you're so brave.' I don't know if I'd have that courage now. And I don't know if that was kind of innocence or ignorance,'" she reflected. 

But the chance to enter the industry came at a personal price: "[I] was not well fully. I was depressed and I – just wasn't well."

"There was a lot that was really messed up," she remarked, revealing that she faced a lot of body shaming. 

Jessie went on to make her film debut in 2017 thriller Beast. She won the Critics Choice Award for Best Actress for her role in Hamnet.