{"id":491793,"date":"2025-10-11T19:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T19:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/491793\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T19:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T19:57:11","slug":"steven-spielberg-surprises-hamnet-london-premiere-praises-chloe-zhao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/491793\/","title":{"rendered":"Steven Spielberg Surprises Hamnet London Premiere, Praises Chlo\u00e9 Zhao"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSteven Spielberg<\/a> made a surprise appearance at the London Film Festival<\/a> premiere of Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s \u201cHamnet<\/a>\u201d on Saturday night, praising the director for her devastating historical drama.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe audience at Royal Festival Hall erupted in cheers as Spielberg took the stage and explained how he first met Zhao at a dinner for Oscar-nominated directors, the year after she won the award for \u201cNomadland.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe became friends and we\u2019d have lunch together at Amblin and I\u2019m just amazed by her, you know,\u201d Spielberg said before sharing what he thinks makes Zhao such a special filmmaker.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI really believe the earth has a heartbeat. It\u2019s a 24\/7 seismic cycle, and all of us are connected to this heartbeat which happens right under our feet. But Chlo\u00e9 Zhao is connected to it in a profound way because it\u2019s where her art comes from,\u201d the legendary director continued. \u201cIt\u2019s what she brings to set every day, it\u2019s what she anoints and shares with her cast every day. And I really believe that when you see \u2018Hamnet,\u2019 you\u2019ll be able to feel the seismic heartbeat of the earth because of Chlo\u00e9 Zhao.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpielberg is a producer on \u201cHamnet,\u201d which tells the \u201cpowerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare\u2019s timeless masterpiece, \u2018Hamlet,’\u201d according to the film\u2019s synopsis. Paul Mescal<\/a> plays William Shakespeare with Jessie Buckley as his wife, Agnes.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the premiere, Mescal applauded Zhao as \u201cone of the great witches of our day,\u201d saying that \u201cthe atmosphere she established is one of the main reasons that people seem to be responding to the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen it came time for Zhao to take the mic, she was visibly overcome with emotion. \u201cI am very emotional, so I ask for your grace,\u201d she began. \u201cI feel immense gratitude because today we finally brought \u2018Hamnet\u2019 home.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tShe continued: \u201cMaking a film on this island with this village has given me a deep feeling of community, of safety that I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever experienced before. It helped me through a very difficult time in my life and I don\u2019t take it for granted, especially in a world that is becoming increasingly lonesome.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe director then led the audience in a breathing exercise before the screening started, leaving them with a mantra to keep in mind during the film: \u201cAll emotions are welcome.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHamnet\u201d world premiered at the Telluride Film Festival last month, where it made a huge splash and sparked Oscar buzz, and went on to win the People\u2019s Choice Award at TIFF. In Variety\u2018s review<\/a>, chief film critic Peter Debruge wrote that the film is \u201cso emotionally raw as to be almost excruciating at times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJessie Buckley delivers a heroic performance as Shakespeare\u2019s wife Agnes and the mother of his children \u2014 although as presented, she could be the mother of us all \u2014 the grounded, near-shamanic spirit forced to accept the death of her son, Hamnet,\u201d the review continues. \u201cMeanwhile, Paul Mescal plays Shakespeare, who pours his grief into \u201cthe Danish play,\u201d but both actor and character are eclipsed by the feminine elements of this story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHamnet\u201d will receive a limited theatrical release in the U.S. and Canada from Focus Features beginning Nov. 27 before expanding wide on Dec. 12. It will release in the U.K. on Jan. 9 via Universal Pictures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steven Spielberg made a surprise appearance at the London Film Festival premiere of Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s \u201cHamnet\u201d on Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,153073,257,127517,9375,11820,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-491793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-hamnet","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-london-film-festival","14":"tag-paul-mescal","15":"tag-steven-spielberg","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115357302342100246","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}