{"id":286899,"date":"2026-01-16T03:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T03:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/286899\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T03:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T03:45:10","slug":"hamnets-paul-mescal-and-cillian-murphy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/286899\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Hamnet\u2019s Paul Mescal And Cillian Murphy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE<\/strong>: Paul Mescal<\/a> was backstage in the Picturehouse Central green room where he was awaiting the arrival of fellow Irishman, Oscar-winning Cillian Murphy<\/a> who was to grill him, in the nicest possible way, about his portrait of William Shakespeare in Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s\u00a0Hamnet<\/a>, a movie that features an Earth-mother performance of shattering proportions by Jessie Buckley as Shakespeare\u2019s wife Agnes.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film is based on Maggie O\u2019Farrell\u2019s bestselling novel that imagines how Agnes and Will meet. Well, it\u2019s definitely animal lust when they meet, I can tell you that.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the heart of the film is how they cope with the loss of their son, the Hamnet of the title, and how they survive the worst of all tragedies: parents losing a child. Out of that pain, it\u2019s suggested, comes great art. And that resulting art from Shakespeare is of course Hamlet \u2014 perhaps the\u00a0world\u2019s most performed drama.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Hamnet,<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t(L-R) Cillian Murphy and Paul Mescal in conversation at a special screening of \u2018Hamnet\u2019 in London<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDave Benett<\/p>\n

\n\tI had some time with Mescal away from\u00a0his Q&A session with Murphy and I asked Mescal whether he\u2019d met bereavement counselors or spoken to people about the death of a child.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI felt slightly uncomfortable with the process of asking someone directly, but I did lots of reading online,\u201d he said. \u201cJust looking at statistics about what happens to a married couple, because I wanted to leave a lot of it up to how I imagined something like that would be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

I don\u2019t think Shakespeare was making plays to show off his talent. I think he was making plays and making work to communicate something about the world.<\/p>\n

Paul Mescal<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\tHis voice soft and quiet now, he continued, \u201cBecause the one thing that I found is that there\u2019s lots of differences across the spectrum of things that couples and individuals feel in it, but the kind of thing that homogenized it all was the fact that it\u2019s a miracle if any couple really survives the death of a child. There\u2019s many things that are remarkable about both Agnes and Will, but the main thing to me was that they still managed to find a way back to each other. And that\u2019s what kind of breaks my heart. That\u2019s always something that happens in a far away land. And to other people. And unfortunately there\u2019s a percentage of people in the world where it happens to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tI asked him how he avoided that painful clich\u00e9 when actors portray famous folk, because his character is Shakespeare before he\u2019s, well, Shakespeare the Bard of Stratford-Upon-Avon.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat clich\u00e9 drives him crazy too, he said. Also, that\u2019s not how the character is presented in the novel so it was never an issue. \u201cSo it would have felt surprising to me if suddenly a filmmaker like Chlo\u00e9 was like, \u2018Do you know what I want to do? I want to make this about the great William Shakespeare.\u2019 So that was never really a conversation that we had,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe went on, \u201cOf course, you see his brilliance in his work when you see it in the final act, but it\u2019s not about how brilliant the play is. It\u2019s about what he\u2019s doing for his son with the play, which is much more exciting to me \u2026 I don\u2019t think Shakespeare was making plays to show off his talent. I think he was making plays and making work to communicate something about the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Hamnet,<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPaul Mescal on stage in London being interviewed by Cillian Murphy about \u2018Hamnet\u2019 <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDave Benett<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGenerally,\u201d he added, \u201cI think the best artists are making things to serve their talent. They\u2019re making it because they have something to say, and that to me felt like I could draw a line between me and Shakespeare with that, as I think many artists can. What I couldn\u2019t draw a line between is going, \u2018Do you know who I feel close to as William Shakespeare?\u2019 I find that too big a gap to try and service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso, thankfully, Mescal has avoided the clich\u00e9 of him, where thespians who\u2019ve portrayed him in the past ensure that you know they\u2019re playing bloody Shakespeare, you know, bowed head and learned. \u201cIt\u2019s well trodden,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAlso, I think there\u2019s nothing to testify that the clich\u00e9 is accurate and what I\u2019m doing isn\u2019t. It\u2019s like what I\u2019m doing could be totally off-the-mark, but to me it felt true. That\u2019s how, when I read his plays, I think there\u2019s an animal in his work. He\u2019s a heart animal. He\u2019s not a head animal to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd, I told him, there is an immediate sensual rawness between Agnes and Will the moment they meet. Mescal smiles and says, \u201cThat\u2019s just what it feels like as a young person to be like in love!\u201d Then corrected himself, saying that really, the moment reflects a couple of any age.<\/p>\n

\n\tI wondered how he got his mind and body ready for the shoot? \u201cThe tone of the piece informs it subconsciously,\u201d he said, \u201cIt just felt to me that he\u2019s very much rooted. He\u2019s not away with the fairies and up in the sky. He\u2019s like snarling on all fours. So again, it\u2019s tied to the thing of not trying to be overly conscious with my choices. The feeling that I had when I read the book and when I read the script, and when I knew I was going to be working with Jessie and Chlo\u00e9 was, this just feels like the film that we were always going to make in terms of the tone. And then you have to go and make it, and then it becomes a different thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

To me it was a chip I had on my shoulder.\u00a0\u00a0It was like I always thought Shakespeare belonged to English and British people.<\/p>\n

Mescal<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\tWhen he auditioned, he was playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire and felt, he said, \u201cThere was a kind of energy that I was carrying into that that I don\u2019t think screams \u2018William Shakespeare\u2019, but actually it was something that Chlo\u00e9 was interested in, and something that I had got great joy out of actually playing on stage where I was was thinking, \u2018Oh, this is a color that I don\u2019t think maybe people necessarily associate with me or my work.\u2019 But it\u2019s something that I think is latent in me that I found very useful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Hamnet\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t(L-R) Simon Amstell, Saul Abraham, Paul Mescal, Himesh Patel and Daniel Chandler at the reception for \u2018Hamnet\u2019 at The Devonshire on Wednesday in London<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDave Benett<\/p>\n

\n\tHe agreed with my assessment that there\u2019s a freedom about his performance, and he believes that\u2019s because with playing Shakespeare it\u2019s \u201cinterior until it\u2019s not, and then it\u2019s utterly expressive,\u201d\u00a0noting that maybe \u201cthere\u2019s an ease that comes with that\u201d for the audience.<\/p>\n

\n\tNonetheless, Mescal believes that there\u2019s a fundamental weight to\u00a0Shakespeare, \u201cespecially as he gets older and is going through the grieving process. But I don\u2019t think that the performance is like laden down \u2026 He\u2019s not like trudging through his life. He\u2019s like a bulldozer, but I think bulldozers can be pretty heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen he was in school in Ireland, the actor says that there was always \u201ca barrier\u201d in his head concerning Shakespeare. \u201cTo me it was a chip I had on my shoulder.\u00a0It was like I always thought Shakespeare belonged to English and British people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s amused that there\u2019s a film about Shakespeare \u201cthat\u2019s directed by a Chinese woman with a predominantly Polish crew and two Irish people at the center of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPaul Mescal stars as William Shakespeare in director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s \u2018Hamnet\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFocus Features<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI actually don\u2019t think it has anything to do with the nationality,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s funny that it ends up being us, but I think that there\u2019s something exciting about the kind of quality that Jessie brings and that I bring, and we bring together, that I don\u2019t think is necessarily what you expect when you first think Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare, which I think serves the film, because it kind of tilts the axis or the perspective a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBuckley and Mescal are actors, for heaven\u2019s sake, trained to take on any role. Nationality be damned. However, when I originally heard about Buckley and Mescal being cast in Hamnet, I chuckled because of the larks I imagined they\u2019d have during filming. Was there craic to be had, I asked Mescal, using the term the Irish use when referring to having a good time.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOh, absolutely,\u201d said Mescal, as an enormous smile spreading across his face.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI mean, that\u2019s what\u2019s hard to communicate sometimes, is that the film is spoken about in terms of it making people upset. And of course it is that, but there was lots of joy to be found in it, because I think that that\u2019s the joy of making something that is cathartic, even if it\u2019s emotional, it\u2019s that you\u2019re totally relieved as an artist that you\u2019re feeling that. You\u2019re like, \u2018Thank f*ck! We must be doing something right!\u2019 at least in our own heads \u2026 I think the thing that we were feeling on the day is the thing that audiences are feeling when they sit in a room and it\u2019s like so exciting to me to see like the box office figures that the film did here this weekend. It\u2019s incredibly exciting to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

I know that everybody says that they love everybody that they work with, generally. But for me I can hold my hand up and say that\u2019s categorically true.<\/p>\n

Mescal<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t(L-R) Director of photography Lukasz Zal, director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao and actors Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal on the \u2018Hamnet\u2019 set<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAgata Grzybowska \/ \u00a9 2025 FOCUS FEATURES LLC<\/p>\n

\n\tTalking of craic, I found it hilarious that following the screening, some of us trudged over to the posh Devonshire pub just off Piccadilly Circus where, among other tipples on offer there were rows of perfectly poured glasses of the Irish stout known as Guinness. Can\u2019t stand the stuff myself, and I was amused to see that Mescal wasn\u2019t seen to be sipping the black brew.<\/p>\n

\n\tMescal is also starring with his pal Josh O\u2019Connor in\u00a0The History of Sound,\u00a0directed by Oliver Hermanus from Ben Shattuck\u2019s novella about two musicologists. They meet in a Cambridge, Massachusetts bar in 1916\u00a0and instantly bond over their appreciation of regional folk songs.<\/p>\n

\n\tLionel, Mescal\u2019s character, has synesthesia, where he can see color and see and feel emotions when he listens to music. It\u2019s a deeply poignant movie, and as with Hamnet, it\u2019s about loss. That was another collaboration of which he\u2019s proud. He said, \u201cI\u2019ve been very lucky with the people that I\u2019ve got to work with,\u201d and adds that he hasn\u2019t worked with anybody that he doesn\u2019t \u201cdeeply admire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGrinning now, he added that it makes him nervous every time he goes on a press tour \u201cbecause I have to go in and say, \u2018I love\u2019 this person, and I know that everybody says that they love everybody that they work with, generally. But for me I can hold my hand up and say that\u2019s categorically true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJacobi Jupe stars as Hamnet with Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare in \u2018Hamnet\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Focus Features \/ \u00a9 2025 FOCUS FEATURES LLC<\/p>\n

\n\tMy sense about\u00a0Mescal, having interviewed him and met him many times since his arrival in the series Normal People, is that he\u2019s an actor first, who goes after the work; the stardom bit just happens to come with the territory he now inhabits.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI went to drama school to be an actor, not a movie star,\u201d he said shyly. \u201cUnless I suddenly have a different relationship to myself, I will always identify as an actor. I might be very surprised if that changed,\u00a0because I think my priorities would have to change. And I\u2019m living the life that I couldn\u2019t have been dreamt of and it requires \u2026\u201d He then paused for a moment, drawing on\u00a0something George Clooney says in\u00a0Jay Kelly.\u00a0\u201cClooney says something like, \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to achieve that [stardom] but then you want to hold onto it, and that requires work and that\u2019s not even to be a star, it\u2019s to be an actor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPrior to being in central London for the night, Mescal had been on the set of the Paul McCartney segment of the quartet of films Sam Mendes is shooting about The\u00a0Beatles. But he swatted away questions about that and how it\u2019s being shot and simply said, \u201cIt\u2019s a feat. It\u2019s a big old set of movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThen, Cillian Murphy arrived in the green room\u00a0in the nick of time! He was saving his friend from having to answer my questions about the Fab Four.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier, I\u2019d been over at Sony for a screening of\u00a028 Years Later:The Bone Temple, and Murphy has long been associated with the series of movies featuring survivors of a virus who flee the flesh-eating \u201cinfected.\u201d\u00a0I couldn\u2019t eat for a day after seeing the new film. There should be a warning that people shouldn\u2019t eat popcorn during it, Mescal said. Popcorn is OK if they chomp it quietly, he decided. It\u2019s people opening cans of water in theaters that drives him really crazy though. \u201cIt\u2019s a f*cking nightmare,\u201d Mescal said, making a hissing noise to demonstrate opening a can.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat gets Murphy\u2019s goat though, is people being served dinner during a movie. \u201cEat before you go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOr after,\u201d Mescal chimed in.<\/p>\n

\n\tI can see why these actors have become stars. They have a playfulness abut them. And charisma. And Mescal has it in spades.<\/p>\n

\n\tSomeone who knows that for sure is Duncan Kenworthy, the award-winning producer of\u00a0Notting Hill, Love Actually\u00a0and\u00a0Four Weddings and a Funeral, who attended the screening and reception. At one point he was deep in conversation with Mescal.<\/p>\n

\n\tI asked Kenworthy if he had a romantic comedy up his sleeve for the star. His response was: \u201cIt would be good, wouldn\u2019t it?\u201d\u00a0He\u2019s mighty impressed with Mescal as an actor. \u201cHe\u2019s incredibly charismatic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tCan\u2019t argue with that.<\/p>\n

\n\tCheck back here for the full video of Mescal\u2019s conversation with Murphy.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Paul Mescal was backstage in the Picturehouse Central green room where he was awaiting the arrival of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[7118,434,18,117,59479,25885,19,17,23432],"class_list":{"0":"post-286899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-cillian-murphy","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-focus-features","13":"tag-hamnet","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-paul-mescal"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115902724695733435","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}