Jessie Buckley has said she was “brutalised” on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s BBC reality series I’d Do Anything. The Irish actor, now 36, claimed she faced “unfair objectification” when she appeared on the 2008 show, which aimed to find an unknown to play Nancy in a West End production of Oliver.
Buckley, who is an Oscar frontrunner for her role in Hamnet, said she was “bodyshamed” on the series at age 17. She also criticised the show for sending her to “femininity school”, which she described as “messed up”. In an interview with Vogue, she said: “I really hope that a 15, 17, whatever-age woman never has to be brutalised quite like what happened on that show.”
Buckley finished second on the series, with the role going to Jodie Prenger. After the show, she turned down an offer from theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh to be Prenger’s understudy. Instead, she starred in a London revival of A Little Night Music before graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2013.
The Independent has approached Lloyd Webber and the BBC for comment. Buckley is now an Oscar frontrunner for her lead role in Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Hamnet, after winning the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Actress earlier this week.
