Jessie Buckley was "daunted" by the prospect of playing not one but three characters in her new movie The Bride!
In Maggie Gyllenhaal's latest directorial feature, the Hamnet actress plays the titular Bride of Frankenstein, who is brought back to life to be a companion for Christian Bale's monster, Frank.
But that's not all - Buckley also takes on the role of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, and Ida, a young woman who is murdered by mobsters.
The Irish actress admitted to Entertainment Weekly that she felt "daunted" about playing three characters, each with distinctive accents, personalities, and movements.
Recalling her response when she read the completed script, Buckley told the publication, "It was extraordinary. It was literally like something electrical in my hands. I really had no idea how to do it, which is always an exciting place to want to do something in. You couldn't help but be terrified."
Gyllenhaal, who worked with Buckley on her 2021 movie The Lost Daughter, shared that she tried not to write her script with the Oscar nominee in mind, but let slip about the project when they met up for dinner in Paris.
"I really tried not to write (the parts) for her," Gyllenhaal explained. "I've had the experience as an actress of someone telling me, 'I'm writing this for you,' and then they didn't offer it to me. And I thought, 'Well, who knows? What if the Bride ends up having to be 75 or something? I can't speak to her about it.'"
She continued, "(But) we drank too much wine. And I said, 'I'm working on something. Do you want to just read it?' We read the opening sequence, pretty similar to how it is in the movie."
Buckley was enthralled by that first scene and even more captivated when Gyllenhaal sent her the finished script about a year later.
The Bride!, which also stars Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, and Jake Gyllenhaal, will be released on 6 March.
