Jessie Buckley’s career would be ‘easier if she had a million Instagram followers’

Maggie Gyllenhaal was determined to have Jessie Buckley in her upcoming movie, The Bride!.

Jessie Buckley thinks she might’ve been more successful if she had a bigger social media following.

The 36-year-old actress stars alongside the likes of Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Penelope Cruz in The Bride!, the upcoming American gothic crime film written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Jessie is thankful that her modest online presence didn’t count against her.

Jessie – who recently played Agnes Shakespeare in the period drama Hamnet – told Entertainment Weekly: “[Maggie] had to basically convince the powers that be that it didn’t matter that I didn’t have an Instagram account, that she only wanted me to do it. And I’m very, very grateful — it’s not an easy thing to do. And I also get it on behalf of the studio.

“It’d be way easier if I had a million Instagram followers for them. But I don’t think that actually works.

“At the end of the day, you want a story to have life, and whatever the director or writer feels is the way to make that come to life, that’s their choice.”

Jessie believes that movie studios actually used to be swayed by things like social media followings.

The actress continued: “I’m probably going to get in a lot of trouble for saying this. Maybe there was a moment where that actually had weight, and I just don’t believe it does anymore.

“I think people like Paul Thomas Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Chloé Zhao, Denis Villeneuve, they’re just making their s***, doing it their way. I don’t think they can make the movies that they’ve made if they chose an ingredient based on Instagram followers rather than what colour paint they wanted to use.”

Maggie, 48, was ultimately determined to have Jessie in her movie.

The actress-turned-director said: “I’ve been an actress for many years, and I just was like, ‘I’m going to bat for this girl. Who else is going to play her?’ When people did that for me, it changed my life, so I’m doing it. And it worked, and now she’s going to win the Oscar, so I feel very vindicated.”