Key Highlights
- Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.
- There were only four days left of shooting on “Hamnet” when Chloé Zhao realized she didn’t have an ending.
- The filmmaker had led the cast through a week filming the pivotal climactic sequence inside the Globe Theatre, where William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) is staging his opus “Hamlet,” but something was missing.
- The script had Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes (Jessie Buckley), and her brother Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn) witnessing the demise of Hamlet (Noah Jupe), a denouement that should have evoked a sense of release.
- But even though the moment was meant to tie Shakespeare’s masterpiece to the still-fresh death of Will and Agnes’ 11-year-old son, Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), neither Zhao nor Buckley could feel the necessary catharsis.“Jessie and I avoided each other for the rest of the day because we both knew we had no film,” Zhao says.
