Novelist/Screenwriter Maggie O’Farrell on Taking ‘Hamnet’ From the Page to the Screen [VIDEO INTERVIEW]
Maggie O’Farrell didn’t intend to turn her best-selling novel Hamnet into a film when she wrote it but when director Chloé Zhao said she wouldn’t direct it without her co-adapting it, O’Farrell became equally compelled. “Chloe’s a very persuasive person,” she says, fully expecting to turn her down on their initial Zoom call. “So I went into the kitchen and my husband said to me, ‘Oh, how did she take it?’ And I said, ‘Actually, I said, yes.’ I’m very glad I did though, I should say.”
As most people did early in school, Shakespeare was taught as the literature bible of academics. Certainly in the U.S. but even more so in the UK and Ireland. For O’Farrell, she became especially enamored with Hamlet. “I think it appeals to a certain kind of teenager, which I was,” she says, referring to her goth days, which I fully concurred with. But upon entering university she started digging deeper. A teacher in high school had mentioned the name ‘Hamnet,’ the son lost to the plague by Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway. She began to investigate the lack of detail we have about William Shakespeare’s life, at the seemingly glaring obviousness of Hamlet/Hamnet and most of all, the details of Anne, who, like Hamnet, was also known as Agnes. As little we know about the literary genius himself, even less is knows about Anne/Agnes.
“There’s just been this enormous pile on for hundreds of years onto her saying the only story we’ve ever been fed about her is that he hated her, that she trapped him into marriage, that he ran away to London to get away from her,” O’Farrell says. It’s here that O’Farrell found her story and the creation of a life story, a possible life story, was born. To help fill out Agnes’ life, and that of her children, O’Farrell dove back into all of Shakespeare’s plays, finding the clues and Easter eggs, if you will, he added that told the story to a sharper eye.
In our conversation, we dig into that deep dive, collaborating with Zhao and how ideal the casting of Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as Will is (“I think Jessie is amazing. She’s a dream Agnes.” “I always wanted it to be Paul actually. He was always my, I kept saying, Paul Mescal, Paul Mescal, please, please, Paul Mescal.”) and what’s coming next for her in the novel-to-film adaptation of her work.
Hamnet will open in Los Angeles and New York on November 26 and go wide on December 5.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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