Chloe Zhao, Jessie Buckley on ‘Hamnet’ Oscars buzz
Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal as Agnes and William Shakespeare in ‘Hamnet.’ Photo from Focus Features
LOS ANGELES – “Sometimes the Oscar stuff is kind of overwhelming,” admitted Chloe Zhao, the director of “Hamnet,” one of the frontrunners in the coming Oscars, on how she is handling the awards season pressure. “I’m trying to find a way to be as raw as we were when we made this film.”
“And if I could be more human in this conversation, then that’s all that matters,” added the filmmaker whom I interviewed with Jessie Buckley, predicted by awards pundits as the most likely to win Best Actress honors at the Academy’s biggest night on March 15. “So I’m being conscious, to be honest, and come back and put my hands on the ground.”
Chloe Zhao (left) directs Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley on ‘Hamnet.’ Photo from Focus Features
If you have not yet seen “Hamnet,” do watch Chloe’s devastatingly beautiful film that dramatizes the heartrending story behind the writing of William Shakespeare’s classic, “Hamlet.”
A deeply moving reflection on love, grief and loss, the winner of the 2026 Golden Globe Best Motion Picture – Drama focuses on the theory that the death of William’s son, Hamnet, drove the writer to pen his masterpiece, “Hamlet.” Apparently, in the Tudor era, the names Hamlet and Hamnet are interchangeable.
Chloe Zhao’s ‘Hamnet’ is a deeply moving reflection on love, grief and loss. Photo from Focus Features
In Chloe and Maggie O’Farrell’s sublime adaptation of the latter’s 2020 novel of the same name, the performances boost the drama, which earned eight Oscar nominations. Paul Mescal is quietly compelling as The Bard, who was eventually lionized as the greatest poet and playwright in the English language.
As Agnes, William’s wife, Jessie is the film’s emotional core, its heart, as she masterfully portrays a woman who is reputed to be a forest witch, and a force of nature as a wife and mother.
Jessie Buckley’s performance in ‘Hamnet’ makes her the Oscars Best Actress frontrunner, pundits predict. Photo from Focus Features
The supporting cast is top-rate, including the Jupe brothers – Jacobi as the young Hamnet and Noah as the Hamlet in the play – Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn, and David Wilmot.
For Jessie, the awards season frenzy adds to her hectic life as a brand new mom. She gave birth late last year to a girl, her first child with a man she described only to The New York Times as a mental health worker named Freddie.
“I’m breastfeeding at the moment,” she disclosed to the select journalists in the roundtable interview. “I’m changing nappies and then getting somebody to come and do my makeup. It’s all a bit of a mess.
“I’m feeling pretty real and raw right now in the best way. And it’s a gift. I have this sister beside me – we just get in the river and go through it and be human.”
“Oh, I’m not shy. I want all the good stuff for her, and she deserves it,” Chloe said of the actress who sat beside her.
“Once upon a time, we used to tell stories around fires,” Chloe continued about the Oscars season madness. She and Jessie are a calming presence, tending to speak in philosophical, metaphorical, and spiritual context. “There was a lot more humanity. Nowadays, there’s a lot of external definition of what humanness is as opposed to our internal knowing. And often our internal remembering is quietened by all these noises, pressures, regulations, and all.
“I just know that many will want to have that safety and that space, that acceptance of the work. So the more recognition Jessie has, the better. So I say, let’s go.”
As for Paul, sadly overlooked in a year of outstanding male supporting performances (he’s up for the BAFTA Film Best Supporting Actor Award), Chloe volunteered that his “hairstyle (as William) is wrong. I saw the historically correct one. I said, no way. I just want him to be sexy. We want Shakespeare to be sexy.”
‘Hamnet’s’ Chloe Zhao and Jessie Buckley with Inquirer.net USA columnist Ruben V. Nepales. CONTRIBUTED
“I knew that these characters are archetypal for me, first and foremost,” stressed Chloe, who set Academy and Golden Globe records in 2021 for “Nomadland.” She was the first Asian woman and the first woman of color to win Best Director. With her nod for “Hamnet,” Chloe is the first woman to be nominated for Best Director twice.
On her concept of Paul as the Bard of Avon, the Beijing-born director said, “I’m interested in exploring through our version of Shakespeare, which might be a little uncomfortable sometimes for today, how a man should behave. I just can’t have any of that.
“I needed somebody willing to go into all the shadow stuff in him. And not just him, but the collective masculine. And not be afraid to go in there. Because if you look at Shakespeare’s play, it’s full of all those shadow qualities.
“And that’s why it’s so timeless, because it’s not just talking about the light, it’s talking about all the shadows, and it’s in the shadows that some of our greatest inspirations and wisdoms are buried. So I needed somebody willing to surrender to the process and like that part of himself come out.”
“And at the same time, it was amazing because not only Paul is that, but he’s also the container, at least for me sometimes, because I’m very chaotic,” Chloe shared. “And Jessie does it at times. Jessie needs to go chaotic with her character. So Paul, in some ways, is like between the three of us.”
Jessie, whose chemistry with Paul ignites “Hamnet,” remarked about her costar: “I knew Paul a little bit before. I always loved watching his work and deeply respected his work. But the chemistry you can’t create. It’s either there or not.
Photo from Focus Features
“The thrill of working with Paul was…a kinetic crackle happened between us immediately. It felt like we could really hold each other. And also, there is something like an edge of the unknown between us that is really exciting.
“I really had the feeling that I’m going to meet Paul many times in my life as a partner, and we’re going to learn a lot about being human together. Playing these people as well in this relationship was amazing to be in, because they could let each other grow bigger than their relationship.”
“There’s something bigger than the relationship between them, which they recognized,” Jessie continued about Paul on their first time working together. They were both in “The Lost Daughter,” but they did not share screen time. “And it taught me a lot about being in a relationship, that when you have that energy between each other, sometimes you do have to let each other go.
“Paul is amazing. I think he’s one of the great actors. He’s one of the great men. He’s got this giant quality about him, but the tenderest heart. And he’s a real partner, which sometimes male colleagues aren’t.
“When he is with you, he’s with you. And he loves women. He wants to champion women. He just wants to be on the team. He wants to be in the community and in the village with his absolute heart.”
“Hamnet’s” striking opening scene shows Jessie’s Agnes, who has a close bond with nature, curled up in a fetal position inside the cave-like base of a tree, deep in the forest. The actress herself loves nature.
“I grew up in a place called Killarney in Kerry in southern Ireland, which is surrounded by nature, mountains, and lakes,” Jessie said. “A lot of who I am comes from the wildness of that landscape. Things grow because they just grow. There’s no planting.
“I’ve always looked to ground myself in nature. I’ve lived in a city for 17 years, but I’ve had to move back out to nature to be able to put my hands on the ground. It’s essential to me as a human and in my work.
“It’s essential for Agnes, too. And I think nature is her North Star. She navigates life and death through nature. She created a story for herself to find the things that she’s lost. Her mother is in nature. She goes back to the woods to give birth.”
“Hamnet’s” ending scene at the Globe Theatre is wordless, yet it’s one of the most profoundly emotional denouements in recent cinema. Jessie’s Agnes, still grieving over Hamnet’s death and resenting William for turning their family loss into a play, eventually breaks into a smile that lights up the screen and uplifts the spirit.
Chloe confessed, “I didn’t know what was going to come out, and it was a relief, a release in the whole journey, even getting to the Globe. When we started the Globe (scenes), I was so lost I didn’t know what to do. I was like, we got on this epic, emotional journey. And then we have to go to the Globe.
“How do we contain all of that to this moment? And where does it end? How do we release this journey? In the first few days, I was completely lost. And then I realized being lost was very important and deeply human. And if I had the courage in myself and as this character to be seen as lost, that was essential for this woman.
“And then I realized that I couldn’t hold what she was feeling on my own. And then these 300 extras came in around me and held it with me, and we held it with each other. And then that smile.”
Jessie shared, “I didn’t know it was going to end up there. I definitely didn’t know it was going to end in a laugh at the beginning, when I hated myself and felt so lost. But I was very grateful by the end that I did. I could have laughed.”
“Jessie isn’t thinking that’s how the film ends,” Chloe remarked. “The script doesn’t say that she smiles in the end. It’s just in that moment, like how she described. That’s what her body did, that’s what felt true.”
“And for me, I was watching. When you’re like three days out from wrapping your film, you’re looking for an ending, right? I usually don’t have an ending when I go into a film. So when she did that, and it was after we had already done the scene, we just kept holding on to her.”
Chloe added about filming what will be treasured as one of the most moving, unforgettable conclusions in film, “And then I remember we were just sitting there. Keep going, keep going. And Marc (A. Wilson, first assistant director) was like, God, don’t cut it. Just hold on. And then it (smile) came. And then when you (to Jessie) did that, Lukasz (Zal, cinematographer) and I were like, oh! because of that laugh she did.
“In the end, it’s from another one of those things. It’s from deep pain. Right on the other edge is deep pleasure. Sadness and joy – the line is very thin. I’ve done a lot of studying from the tantric tradition, when you’re healing, say, from sexual trauma, and you have this great pain.
“And then right at some point, that pain gets so unbearable. There’s the surrender, and great pleasure comes into your body that has been blocked before. And that’s what happens to the pain a year after her son’s death.
“And then when it goes right over the threshold, it’s just like when Sam Mendes, one of our producers, saw the film, and he was like, she’s ten years younger in that moment because that’s life energy. That’s the libido. As Carl Jung says, that’s been trapped. And that moment that libido came through. And that’s life force, right?”
The filmmaker is grateful that “Hamnet” came to me. Amblin, Steven Spielberg’s production company, called me about it. I was very happy they did. No, it doesn’t have any connection with ‘Nomadland.’ But, you know, it’s like one of those things. You travel through life, and these stories find you along the way.”
As our interview wound down, Chloe said, “Someone asked me, what would you do next? You think ‘Hamnet’ gives you an idea of what your next thing is? I always say that I don’t think I ever planned it like that because I actually think of stories as something a lot bigger than what I think stories are.
“Stories are seen as something that we have control over, as if it’s like, here’s the plan of my career, and this is the story I’m going to tell. Then we’re like gods manipulating stories.
“But I think the ancients and the mystics knew that stories are a living being that is so much bigger than us and its past, present, and future. It exists somewhere. That is what we can’t comprehend. And I think it’s important to have, at least for me, to have reverence for stories on their own timing.”
(In the US and Canada, “Hamnet” is still showing in some theaters. In the Philippines, “Hamnet” will be shown exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas starting February 18.)
