Paul Mescal & Jessie Buckley Know Hamnet Is Going To Make You Cry

I was warned about Hamnet. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a crier and that I am easily susceptible to emotional manipulation; whether it’s a schmaltzy commercial with an intergenerational storyline or a corny Hallmark movie about the healing capacity of Christmas, I will weep. So, when it comes to a Chloe Zhao directed, critically-lauded drama about the loss of a child and art as a tool to cope with grief, people in my life knew that it would break me. And despite their disclaimers, it did.

Hamnet unfolds slowly, telling the story of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Anne Hathaway, or Agnes Shakespeare (Jessie Buckley) as she’s known in this adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s book Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague, as they fall in love and have three children including their son, Hamnet. The names Hamnet and Hamlet were often used interchangeably back then and this is O’Farrell’s interpretation of what led to Shakespeare’s masterpiece.

In the first half, Hamnet is about the tender beginnings of a relationship and the complexity of marriage. It’s about a free spirit and a neurotic writer navigating their different desires and a long-distance relationship. There are sly nods to Shakespeare’s most famous work, like the fact that William and Agnes are star-crossed lovers as he presumably scribbles down Romeo & Juliet by candlelight or that William’s relationship with his dad proves Shakespeare’s daddy issues were in full effect. The subtlety stops there. The second half of Hamnet is unflinching, a devastating portrait of the grief that accompanies unconditional love. At certain moments, Hamnet made me angry; I was begging for a break from the onslaught of emotional tyranny it was reigning over its audience. At others, I was grateful for its vulnerability and unabashed sentimentality. If Zhao and co. were manipulating me into crying so hard I had a headache for hours after the credits rolled, it worked. Anything that succeeds in eliciting that much emotion and draws out these extraordinary performances from two of the best actors of their generation is, to me, a triumph.

When I speak to Mescal and Buckley over Zoom, they’re a lot gigglier than you may expect considering both are known for playing roles that rip your heart out and give your tear ducts a workout. They are thoughtful, polite, and playfully rib each other with the ease of old friends. Below, the Irish actors talk about the emotional weight of Hamnet, the first movies that made them cry, and gush about their co-star to the hilarious discomfort of the other.

Refinery29: I’m sure you’ve gotten this a lot today but this movie fucked me up. I was sobbing hysterically by the end. 

Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal: [Both laugh].

I feel like people need a disclaimer that they are going to cry a lot. Can you just give a warning or any advice on how to prepare for the emotional experience of watching this film? 

Jessie Buckley: To feel is quite scary. To feel at all is scary. I think we try to control what that is in our lives and in some ways, there’s so much catharsis to connect again to the epicness of just being alive. And this film is so full of love. It’s so full of the courage to love fully and to live fully, and to lose. And anytime you choose to love, you also choose to potentially lose. You’re risking to lose somebody in your life. But I think there’s a lot of catharsis and hope and healing in this film, and you’re not on your own. There’s going to be somebody beside you who’s going to have a tissue, and they’re going to give it to you, and you’re going to have a big chat and a hug afterwards and you’re going to think that was great.

Paul Mescal: [laughs] Okay, that was great! 

Make it a community experience! 

JB: [laughs] That wasn’t my experience. I locked myself in a toilet for half an hour afterwards. 

Yes, I needed to decompress! Do either of you remember the first movie that made you cry or made you feel like this film does? 

JB: Yes, Darby O’Gill and the Little People [1959]. Because there was a banshee and I thought that was the most terrifying thing in the whole wide world. I was inconsolable. Have you seen it? I mean, it’s not a huge hitter, it’s quite niche.

PM: What’s it called again? 

JB:  Darby O’Gill and the Little People. 

PM: That’s not a real movie.

JB: [laughs] It is a movie! 

Paul, what’s the first movie that made you cry? 

JB: He’s going to say something profound. 

PM: No, Tír na nÓg [Into The West, 1992]. 

JB: Oh yeah, that’s lovely. 

JB and PM [in unison]: The potato and the horse! 

JB: Yeah, that made me cry.

Well, you both made me cry. But the movie doesn’t work without your chemistry. William and Agnes are two big characters to embody and you both did so beautifully. I want to give you a moment to look at each other and gush about working with each other and what makes each other so great. 

PM: Jessie is just [laughs] — This is not just a performance of the year, this is a performance, and I’ve said this before, but this is going to be studied in drama schools. Actors around the world, if you want to see what great acting is, not only just watch Hamnet, watch anything that Jessie has ever been in, and you’d be well fed. And that’s all the time we have for today! [laughs] 

JB: No [laughs]. I feel like I’ve met somebody so significant and giant in my life in working with Paul on this. Firstly, he is absolutely… No, firstly, he has the most…  

PM: [laughs] Firstly, Darby O’Gill and the Little People. 

JB: [laughs] No, no! He has such a gigantic human heart, and he’s such a team player. He holds the biggest parts of you. He can drink a case of you, and not many people can, especially co-leads. Not many people can just, with absolute care and courage, help you to tell the story. I mean this with so much sincerity and belief: he is a movie star, and he wears it — 

PM: [nervous, uncomfortable laughter] 

JB: No, you are! You just are. It’s true for you, and that’s because you have this capacity of being a giant. You are a giant person.

PM: I am of average height [laughs]. 

JB:  [laughs] No, your heart is gigantic. It’s no coincidence that he’s going from playing William Shakespeare to Paul McCartney, and being a gladiator. Not many people can manage that, and he can, and that’s because of who he is as a man.

PM: That was lovely.

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