Hamnet Design: Interview & Exclusive Photos | [Your Site Name]

There is something appropriately heart-rending about the emotional architecture of William Shakespeare‘s English Tudor home and the Old Globe Theater in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet. Adapted from the historical novel by Maggie O’Farrell about the tragic inspiration for the Bard’s legendary Hamletproduction designer Fiona Crombie made sure every decision was a conscious, deliberate construction.

The idea was to convey the love and loss between the struggling Will (Paul Mescal) and Agnes (Jessie Buckley), his strong-willed, apothecary wife, who grieve after their titular young son (Jacobi Skirt) succumbs to bubonic plague.

With Agnes as the focal point, the places they occupy embody their initial love and happiness, and, later, their sorrow and shattered lives. “It’s very much a part of the world-building, connecting the characters to the house, to the forest, and to the Globe, and what those spaces represent and how you experience what the characters are experiencing,” says Crombie (Oscar-nominated for The Favourite).

The Henley Street house

After Hamnet’s death, Will can no longer bear living in the Stratford house he grew up in and completely shuts himself off at the Globe, while Agnes pines for the forest where she has always found solace in nature. “When we started, we wanted something that was immersive and without any artifice, so the objective was to find these locations,” Crombie adds. “And through this whole, long process, we arrived at building the house, and obviously, the Globe [both at Elstree Studios in England].”

Typical of Tudor A frame architecture, the Shakespeare house has beams running vertically like bars with horizontal cross beams. It’s restrictive and constraining with low, heavy ceilings that bear down on Agnes and Will. There’s the kitchen and dining room with a staircase leading up to unseen bedrooms and smaller rooms off the dining room.

“The A frame room is very iconic and that seems to be the anchor in a way,” Crombie suggests. “The thing that really made a difference to me making these sets was that we had a lot of reclaimed timber that was from old barns that came from France. And so, in that A frame, I remember we chose this bending beam that gave us a beautiful shape in there that broke up the triangle. It just gave it a sort of softness.

Crombie worked closely with costume designer Malgosia Turzanska (Train Dreams) on color coordination. The house needed to be tactile and reflective of Agnes’ deep connection to nature, which she introduced to the house as a positive life force.

Additionally, the production designer collaborated closely with Oscar-nominated cinematographer Łukasz Żal (Ida, Cold War) on camera layout. It was very important in how the shots between rooms would play. For example, after the death of Hamnet, we view Will stuck in a doorway, his mother (Emily Watson) in the dining room, and his father (David Wilmot) coming in the back. Will appears trapped between the past and present.

“I remember we were looking out a window at the farmhouse and we saw a hole that we ended up using,” Crombie recalls. “We kept this idea of these sort of portals that I thought about a lot with the architecture. This idea that out of the corner of your eye, death is lingering just down these corridors or at the top of the stairs, that dropped to black.”

The Globe Theatre

Meanwhile, recreating the Globe on the Elstree backlot provided its own set of challenges. Using reclaimed wood was an imperative. “Word on the street was that it was stolen or reclaimed. It’s a gray area either way,” Crombie says. “The Globe was simple and basic and designed for what was going to happen on that stage, which really worked for me.”

They scouted the actual Globe, but instantly realized that it was unworkable practically and thematically. The vision of Zhao’s Globe was an expression of Agnes and Will’s life together, with the forest backdrop as the centerpiece. Hamlet was Will’s therapeutic memorial to his late son, which comes as a cathardic revelation to Agnes and a transcendent experience for the entire theater audience.

“It was about the camera and the embrace and that circle around when you’re behind those players,” Crombie suggests. “And so the proportions went back and forth on different permutations to make sure that it had the right quality. And it was important in the construction to make allowances for the sun and the fact that the weather is constantly changing. We had big sails overhead to deal with the movement of the sun. We actually got flooded at some point because it’s an outdoor set.

“And we always talked about this wall of trees and when they come out of the forest as a family,” she adds. “This was our back cloth. And so there we always had these considerations of finding for ourselves, as filmmakers, those threads that Will is weaving, trying to find his way in communicating to Agnes.”