In the midst of a pandemic, ‘Hamnet‘ was a whole viral phenomenon which made it one of the most successful books in recent years, and is on track to follow the same pattern with the film adaptation, directed by the Oscar-winning Chloe Zhaoand with Paul MescaHe, one of the actors of the moment, and Jessie Buckley as protagonists.
On January 23, the adaptation ‘Hamnet‘, being one of the most anticipated releases of 2026, also the protagonist of the awards race, and with its premiere in the United States, new details of one of the most notable projects in cinema are being revealed, such as the fact that the ending could be a serious problem.
‘Hamnet’ had no ending four days after filming finished
The way of rolling Chloe Zhao, in which he provides a personal vision and gives himself in a broad way, it also makes the stories he tells have a special sensitivity, and that is something he achieves in part by not having a closed idea of the film, not knowing what the ending will be when filming begins.
In fact, she usually waits to find its outcome while filming because she doesn’t tell stories in a linear way, she wants to go through the characters’ journey, but on this occasion it was more difficult for her to reach the end, which almost endangered the film, which four days after finishing filming was still not completely written: “I have had to wait for each film. But this time I was going through the end of a relationship, so I was terrified of losing love. I clung to it with all my strength,” she admitted to Los Angeles Times.
The rush to find the right ending for ‘Hamnet’ was felt especially when filming the sequence scene at the Globe Theatre, where William Shakespeareperformed by Paul Mescalputs his ‘Hamlet’ on stage. Both the director Chloe Zhao like the actress Jessie Buckley They realized that they did not have the “necessary catharsis” and being aware of this, the filmmaker says that they avoided “the rest of the day because we knew we didn’t have the film and we went home feeling completely lost.”
Both continued looking for the end, Buckley counts on Los Angeles Times how she considered it “an overwhelming idea to try to unite all the threads of the story that had been woven up to that moment” and that because of that she felt “disconnected.” But then he had the brilliant idea of sending the song ‘This Bitter Earth / On the Nature of Daylight’ by Max Richterwhich the director put in her car on the way to the set. AND voilàthere he found the inspiration he needed.
The special recreation of the Globe Theater
Chloe Zhao and Jessie Buckley meeting at the end in such an inspiring way was not the only special detail that the cast revealed, but it also explained how special the recreation of the Globe Theatresome scenes that were filmed last, and that were the work of the production designer Fiona Crombie in the Elstree Studios in England with real wood brought from France, with a construction of 14 weeks, and which is a size that is smaller than the original, to emphasize the feeling of intimacy.
“This is my version. In general, our space is a little smaller, but the essential architecture of the levels, the roof line, the shape and everything is true to reality. By having real, deteriorated and aged beams, it feels more realistic. We wanted everything to look completely authentic. You want to smell these sets and feel these textures off the screen,” says Crombie when talking about his creation, which anticipates one of the best scenes in ‘Hamnet.
Paul Mescal He has also shown what his feeling was when filming in the recreation of the legendary Globe Theater: “It felt very charged. Until that moment we knew that we had created something very special, but we were also fully aware that that was where we had to land. And that carried its own pressure. There is something very special in interpreting Shakespeare and hearing his words in that place. The film talks about the collision between art and humanity, and there are no more effective words to communicate that feeling than those of ‘Hamlet’.”
