How Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal found the emotional power of ‘Hamnet’

“There were moments when the camera was holding us back,” Buckley recalls. “We were like: ‘No, we have to see each other.'”

“And then as soon as we looked at each other, it was like ‘Oh, no,'” Mescal says, laughing. “What a wonderful thing.”

In “Hamnet,” Mescal plays William Shakespeare and Buckley plays his wife Agnes in the adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning 2020 novel by Chloé Zhao. It is a fictional, fictional drama based on historical fact. Hamnet, one of the couple’s three children, died in 1596 at the age of 11. Within a few years, “Hamlet” would premiere at the Globe Theatre. Scholars have noted that names were essentially interchangeable in 16th-century England.

Zhao’s film, which opens in theaters on Wednesday, imagines a possible connection between the death of Shakespeare’s son and the birth of the playwright’s greatest work. It is a portrait of a marriage in sorrow and literary greatness. In many ways, it is also a film about seeing and being seen. Both William and Agnes are portrayed together as misunderstood, almost outcasts. Williams has been dismissed as a “sticky-faced scholar”. Agnes has been dubbed the “Forest Witch”. The gap of misconception and loneliness is bridged by love in the film’s first half and art in its poignant final act.

In both cases, Buckley and Mescal’s eyes tell much of the story. Her performance – raw, earthy, emotional – has been hailed as one of the best of the year. Both are widely expected to receive Oscar nominations. Although they starred in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter” in different timelines, “Hamnet” marks the first time together on screen for the two young, acclaimed Irish stars.

Says Mescal, “We entered the film at the perfect time. I had great respect for Jesse and loved spending time with him.” “But we were also at the point where we didn’t know each other that well. So there was kind of a mystery.”

Before production began, Zhao conducted a chemistry read for the two. This may go down as the most gratuitous chemistry read in the history of Hollywood. “We forgot we were saying the lines,” says Mescal, sitting next to Buckley.

“There was already such a kinetic energy between us,” Buckley agrees. “It felt like it was very possible.”

Buckley and Mescal met with this reporter earlier this fall when “Hamnet” was making its award-winning premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film’s extreme emotionality had by then acquired an almost legendary reputation for driving moviegoers crazy.

But Buckley, the 35-year-old star of “Wild Roses” and “Wicked Little Letters,” and Mescal, 29, who will soon play Paul McCartney in Sam Mendes’ four-film series, made a cheerful and intelligent entrance. Buckley, a new mother, made a comment about nursing before requesting it not be printed, and then reversed herself. “Ah, print it. What do I care!”

However, once they were established, both actors struggled to capture the enormity of their experience creating “Hamnet.” If “Hamnet” has wowed audiences, it has wowed its stars.

“We worked with Kim on the subconscious and dreams. She asks you these prompts when you start working. One was: Why are you doing this?” Mescal recalls turning to Buckley. “I don’t want to get into why I initially thought I was making it. But I remember sitting with you and looking at the stars for two weeks. There was something personal going on earlier in my life. I remember turning to you and saying, ‘Oh, this idea was so small.'”

Little is known about Shakespeare’s life and even less is known about Agnes’s life. This meant that the actors were using their experiences as artists to try to better understand their characters. Each day of production, Zhao had the cast meditate on three deep breaths, a practice he continued during screenings.

“As actors, sometimes people want you to wear a mask and wear a coat, and I never find that satisfying,” says Buckley. “What Chloé wants you to do is go somewhere deep within yourself to meet the person who is going to understand you. It’s not about masks. If anything, it’s about becoming more human and removing a layer of skin that you’ve perhaps held too tightly around yourself.”

Oscar-winning “Nomadland” director Zhao, who last directed the Marvel film “Eternals,” says he challenged Mescal and Buckley to play roles that were “highly masculine and highly feminine.” Since emerging with a pair of lyrical Lakota plays, “Songs My Brothers Teach Me” and “The Rider,” Zhao has refined a stark naturalism to which actors gravitate. To discover a completely different Shakespeare, he relied on those instincts.

“What we have to do as artists is try to find that commonality that transcends time and space, gender and religion,” says Zhao. “You say: What is the deep humanity of that man who is also there in Paul Mescal? It’s my job to open that portal.”

“Hamnet” dares to admit that all art, even art as groundbreaking as “Hamlet,” comes from somewhere deeply personal. For example, Mescal’s Shakespeare does not recite verses eloquently.

“That would be so boring!” Mescal says. “Anyone who writes like that is not moving lyrically. I think there’s a real engine underneath him. Someone who wants to escape his life and at the same time loves his life. He loved his life and loved his work. This constant conflict inside him, charging around his life, is unsettling.”

“That’s you, too,” Buckley interjected.

Mescal responded, “That was the version of him that meant the most to me.” “I’m sure there’s someone at Oxford who’ll be like, ‘He must have spoken with a weird mixed accent because of the time period.’ Okay, whatever. It doesn’t matter to me.”

In a performance of “Hamlet” at the Globe, “Hamnet” reaches a remarkable climax that opens deep wells of grief and oceans of sympathy. It’s already become one of the most talked-about finales of the year, and it’s when the film’s confidence in the transference of emotion becomes most apparent. Yet, apart from the cameras, it was a sight they struggled to find.

Buckley says, “To be totally honest, we went on this huge, epic journey of the heart. We got to the globe. I didn’t know what to do. I was completely lost. I think Chloe was lost.” “The globe flooded. It rained heavily for two days. You go on this huge journey and you wonder: where will it end?”

But on the third day, when composer Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight” came on his playlist, something clicked for Buckley. He shared it with Zhao and something changed.

“Sometimes as an actor, you feel like you have to do it yourself,” says Buckley. “She was like a lone wolf in the middle of this ocean of people. I realized on the third day how important everyone around me was. It was about surrendering to a community of emotions.”

Buckley and Mescal have already pledged to work together again.

“I feel like we’ll meet each other at the pinnacle of our lives and help each other figure out the next layer,” says Buckley.

“It was definitely one of the most important collaborations I’ve ever done,” says Mescal. “It would be crazy if we only did this once.”

But it’s also possible that the final moments of “Hamnet” will stay with him forever. The strength of the scene also lies in the hundreds of extras who play poignant roles. Buckley and Mescal’s eyes are locked on each other, but the point of the play is this – it is not only the transformation of their private grief, but the resonance of the play all around them.

“Why we go to the movies, why we go to the theater, why we tell stories is because in these places there are parts of us that are very difficult to hold on to,” Buckley says. “There’s this unspoken ocean between the person sitting next to you and the story, and drama is the ship that sails through it.”

Buckley shook his head. “It was incredible. Standing at the end of the stage, I could feel a tsunami of 300 people behind me pouring their hearts out.”

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