Key Insights
- Jessie Buckley credits Rihanna for enhancing the film’s atmosphere.
- The actress experienced a vibrant set reminiscent of a dance party.
- Chloé Zhao’s artistic vision played a crucial role in the film’s production.
- The film explores the grief of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway over their son Hamnet.
Jessie Buckley has Rihanna to thank for letting her escape into the music.
The Hamnet star credited the Grammy winner for providing the soundtrack to a pivotal scene in the Chloé Zhao-directed historical drama—without even realizing it.
“On our wrap day, Chloé would do these dance takes,” Jessie exclusively told E! News during the film’s Los Angeles premiere at the Academy Museum Nov. 18. “There were 300 extras, all the crew. We were inside the globe, we’d gone [on] this mad journey, and she played Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love.’”
Indeed, while the project—a fictionalized account of William Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway’s grief over their 11-year-old son Hamnet’s tragic death—takes place in the late 16th century, Jessie compared the atmosphere on set to a contemporary dance party.
“It was like being in a rave,” the actress behind Agnes, the pseudonym for Anne in the Maggie O’Farrell book the movie is based on, continued. “The whole place started vibrating. All these extras, everybody—it was amazing.”
Of course, the scene wouldn’t have been possible without the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s artistic vision.
