It overpowered critics in Telluride, slayed Toronto audiences and has been on a rampage ever since winning audience film festival awards and catapulting itself to the top of the pack in terms of awards season. In Chloé Zhao‘s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet, Paul Mescal delivers a powerfully restrained and poignant performance as Agnes’s husband – the character is William Shakespeare, though it’s worth mentioning, he is never named. Mescal masterfully embodies a man torn between his burgeoning artistic genius in London and his duties as a husband and father in a medieval market town of Stratford-upon-Avon.
His performance is one that is quiet, simmering interiority; we see the conflict, love, and profound grief play out in his expressive eyes and in the weighted silence he carries. He captures the character’s passionate love for his wife, the warmth and care he has towards his children and we comprehend how difficult it is to make the heartbreaking choice for him to essentially have two lives and the gut-wrenching devastation dealing with the worst kind of loss. We had a glimpse of how Paul works with children in Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun and so I was curious about how he tapped into the energy of working with the film’s young performer’s here. I participated in a virtual roundtable for the film this past weekend, here is my question for the actor. Focus Features release Hamnet on November 27th.
