Jessie Buckley Says Rihanna’s “We Found Love” Became the Unexpected Anthem on the Set of Hamnet

20 November 2025

Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock; Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock

Actress Jessie Buckley has opened up about an extraordinary behind-the-scenes moment while filming the highly anticipated film Hamnet, revealing that a modern pop hit by Rihanna unexpectedly became the soundtrack to a climactic wrap-day scene in Los Angeles. Speaking at the Los Angeles premiere on November 18, 2025, Buckley described how director Chloé Zhao orchestrated a breakdown-of-barriers moment when she cued Rihanna’s “We Found Love” during a large-scale sequence involving roughly 300 extras and crew inside the film’s globe-set, transforming a high-intensity production environment into what she likened to “a rave.”

The film, adapted from the novel by Maggie O’Farrell and directed by Zhao, explores the deep emotional upheaval of Shakespeare’s mourning after the tragic death of his young son Hamnet. While the story is rooted in the late sixteenth century, Buckley’s anecdote underscores the production’s inventive blending of period drama with contemporary emotional energy. In her words, the music created an unexpected but profound break in tone: “We were inside the globe, we’d gone on this mad journey and she played Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’ … The whole place started vibrating. It was amazing.”

Buckley, who plays Agnes (Shakespeare’s wife), said her working relationship with Zhao and her cast made the moment possible. She described Zhao as “a really good cook at getting the best ingredients to come into the pot… Everybody was incredible.” The cast includes Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare and Emily Watson among others. Buckley’s ability to reference Rihanna on a period-piece production reveals how the film’s creative vision stretches beyond historical verisimilitude toward capturing universal emotion.

This anecdote offers insight into how Zhao and her team approached the production: not as a rigid historical artefact but as an emotionally immersive experience. By bringing in a 21st-century pop song during a moment of wrap celebration or symbolic conclusion the film’s creators signalled that they were less focused on rigid timelines than the emotional truth of sorrow, love and transformation. For Buckley, who has spoken before of balancing fire and tenderness in her roles, the music choice amplified the emotional resonance she sought in her portrayal.

When asked about the dynamic between her and Mescal, Buckley spoke warmly of their rapport: “I absolutely adore that man … from our very first chemistry read.” She also referenced Watson as “a lighthouse of a friend … before she even came on, we were talking about it.” Together they carry the weight of a story that is epic in theme yet intimate in focus a mix of loss, legacy, grief and the creation of one of literature’s greatest tragedies.

Hamnet is scheduled for a limited release November 26, 2025, before expanding nationwide December 12. Buckley’s comments at the premiere highlight that the film may surprise audiences not only with its narrative but with its aesthetic and tonal boldness. The story of Shakespeare’s family has often been told as historical biography. This version, however, adds a layer of visceral sensory experience one that uses modern music, immersive set design and emotional immediacy to connect 16th-century grief with contemporary human experience.

For Buckley this project is especially meaningful. In previous interviews she noted that Shakespeare’s words changed her relationship to performance, describing them as “titanic” and saying that before Shakespeare she believed “music was the only way to contain what was wanting to come out.” The dance-off on wrap day, backed by Rihanna’s anthem of finding love, then becomes symbolic of that transformation a convergence of creation, connection and catharsis.

The decision to include such a moment also speaks to Zhao’s directorial intent to disrupt expectations. In a film about loss and the creative spark behind Hamlet, introducing a modern pop element might have seemed an unusual choice but it signals the film’s refusal to remain locked in period detail alone. Instead, Hamnet appears to promise a synthesis of time, emotion and medium. For Buckley and her co-stars, the anecdote about Rihanna and the “rave inside the globe” becomes not just a fun memory, but a window into the mindset of the production a production that wants to amplify humanity rather than narrow it by era or genre.

As the film prepares to land in theaters, viewers may want to pay attention to how that free-form wrap-day moment bleeds into the final cut. Buckley’s reflections hint that lines between set and story blur, that the cast and crew became participants in the emotional journey themselves. Ultimately Hamnet seems poised to deliver more than a retelling it offers an experience.