Interview: Paul Mescal on the Creative Freedom of ‘Hamnet’ and Finding Magic and Love with His Co-Stars
Paul Mescal and I are sitting in a booth in restaurant at The Parker in Palm Springs. It’s barely a few days into the new year and we had just had brunch together at SoHo House in Los Angeles and both (separately) made our way to the desert for the Palm Springs International Film Awards where he and his Hamnet co-star Jessie Buckley and director Chloé Zhao were receiving the Vanguard Award from the legendary Jane Fonda.
It’s been a whirlwind few months for Mescal, who has been flying and forth between promotion for Hamnet in Los Angeles and shooting the four-film epic biopic of the Beatles in London, which will give each band member their own film. Mescal plays Paul McCartney of the legendary Fab Four. The films won’t come out until April 2028 but shooting right in the middle of a current press tour; sometimes coming in just for the weekend and back out on a Monday. Thankfully, director Sam Mendes is also a producer on Hamnet and understands that this is a dual custody situation.
Days before, Mescal gave an interview to The Guardian in which he mentioned ‘taking a break until 2028’ but, the internet being what it is, it turned into everyone thinking he was taking a break from work, from public life, you name it. He clarifies that he won’t have to do what is often the exhaustive and worldwide process of a press tour and promotion. Understandable, he went from a good deal of anonymity as an actor–even after an Emmy nomination at the age of 24 for Normal People–to his Oscar-nominated work in Aftersun catapulting him to blockbuster leading man fame in Gladiator II. But Traveling around the world, junkets, playing word games with co-stars, photo shoots and everything that comes with a modern day press tour is something the 29-year old is actually pretty good at. Always candid, deeply connected with his fellow actors, showering them with effusive praise, all while having a clear understanding of himself that sets him apart from many of his peers, especially for one that’s been active in the industry for just over five years.
But we’re here to talk about Hamnet, and his role as none other than William Shakespeare in Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of the Maggie O’Farrell’s literary fiction novel of the same name. It’s a story about love and loss, building on historical fact and narrative license to piece together the story of the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Hamlet, his courting, marriage and life with Agnes (played by Critics Choice and Golden Globe winner Jessie Buckley), often known historically as Anne Hathaway, and how through the worst pain imaginable for two parents, how they can find each other again. But don’t call it “grief porn,” a phrase Mescal rebuffs. “It’s trivial, and reductive. It’s about finding yourself on the other side, not wallowing in it.”
From its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, to its Toronto International Film Festival People’s Choice Award win to its Golden Globe win for Best Motion Picture – Drama last weekend, Hamnet is one of the must-see films of the season. In our conversation, Mescal and I talk about this ‘break,’ his favorite scenes from the film to shoot, “falling in love” with his co-stars and Cher, sort of.
Erik Anderson: Let’s get this out of the way. Are you really taking a break until 2028?
Paul Mescal: I’m taking a break from promotion!
EA: Okay.
PM: Oh my God. Can you imagine if I turned to Sam Mendes, and Rebecca and Katrina during the plays? I feel like I’m taking a break till … Girl, no. I’m very much … And I’m not even taking a break. I just have the privilege of I get to act and I don’t have to talk about acting for two years, which I haven’t done since 2020. I’m excited for people to … I’m excited for myself, but I’m also excited for whatever audience is interested in my work to not have to listen to me talk about my work and they just get to watch it in 2028. But I’m very much the opposite taking a break.
EA: Yes.
PM: I’m going to be busy for the foreseeable future.
EA: Exactly.
PM: But I’m not going to be talking about it.
EA: that came out, I’m like, I know that the context of this is not the proper context.
PM: It’s not. (laughs)
EA: But it did really make me think of what the last five years have been for you because does it feel like a short amount of time that a lot’s happened or does it-
PM: It feels like a long time now. I think the last year, it felt short up until this year. And I think as you get a little bit older and bolder, you start to recognize things that you love about this industry and things that you don’t love about it. And knowledge I don’t think is actually power in this industry. I think it’s quite debilitating, but I love acting. So it’s about how do I preserve that and look after myself within it. Very obviously incredibly proud of the last five years, but a lot has happened in life in the last five years.
EA: Yeah. And that doesn’t even take into account the personal and self-care that you-
PM: Of course.
EA: … have to not forget about.
PM: Yeah.
EA: You do know.
PM: You do forget about it because you’re … I’m in a very privileged position in my career where I’m living my professional dream, but it does require a certain sacrifice to your personal health, I would say.
EA: Yes.
Paul Mescal: Yeah. Yeah.
EA: You read the book before the script was even an idea. Knowing how the prose was written and how sparsely Will is as a character, what did you think a film version was going to look like or what’d you want it to look like?
PM: I had no idea. I thought it was going to be a much smaller part than it was in the first draft. I was really excited by the screenplay because I was curious about how you adapt to that. I think Chloé and Maggie did an amazing job in terms of committing to the fact that you can’t actually write a completely obedient screenplay.
Even though Will is absent more in the book, he’s absent in spirit. And that was the great challenge of trying to communicate that is like he’s absent in spirit, but he’s also a loving father. And how do you do that? It’s like a great challenge that I think is successful in the film and I’m proud of. But then when you start filming, you kind of forget the book. Or that’s the dream, but it’s very much rooted in the DNA of the piece. So yeah, I just took it off from there.
EA: Tell me about first meeting Chloé. It was Telluride, right? Which I think is also where she met Jessie for the first time.
PM: I think it was probably where she met Jessie for the first time as well. She knew Jessie’s work. She was very generous to take a meeting with me. She didn’t know my work. I very much knew her work.
EA: Yeah.
PM: So it wasn’t with Hamlet in mind, I don’t think, initially. And then we got about an hour in. She asked me to turn in profile. She was like, “Have you ever thought about playing William Shakespeare?” I was like, “Ah.” And then a couple of months pass and me and Jessie did a chemistry read and that’s where we got to.
EA: I feel like there’s something very magical about Telluride.
PM: It’s a very spiritual place for me, for sure.
EA: Yeah.
PM: Very happy place.
EA: Very much for her too.
PM: Very much for her and very much for our film, but that’s ultimately where the three of us came together as individuals and ultimately together. And then that’s where the film came into the world. And it was very, a special screening.
EA Yeah. It was unreal, that first screening.
PM: It’s pretty wild. Yeah.
EA: The meditation, I was not prepared for.
PM: It was one of the most special moments of my life, period, definitely in my career.
EA: I was just thinking-
PM: The stakes felt so high.
EA: Yes, and I was shaking. I was crying the whole time.
PM: It’s full on.
EA: The, “Will you be brave?” scene in the film was created in rehearsal, right.
PM: In the audition with Jacobi.
EA: Yes, with you and Jacobi.
PM: It was the first scene to be shot.
EA: Yes. Can you talk about Chloé’s brand of collaboration and openness to that kind of discovery?
PM: It is rooted in your own impulses as an actor and as a person. And she runs with it and she is not somebody who wants you to stumble on it. She’s not like, “Oh, that thing that you said is good.” She’s actively searching your conscious and your subconscious for what you feel like the character is trying to say through you, just really special. And for that line to be so resonant, but for it to feel like you have ownership. I feel like that line belongs to me and Jacobi.
EA: Yes.
PM: That’s a wonderful feeling to have as an artist. As oftentimes as an actor, it looks like you have agency, but actually you have to be a very diligent dramaturge. Whereas with this, I felt like your artistic impulses are being mined by Chloé. That’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling. Yes.
EA: It’s a moment that was just born out of creativity that turned into something indelible.
PM: It was just about me being curious to see if Jacobi was just locked on the page or whether he was willing to listen and play. And that and he was so willing to play.
EA: That kid.
PM: He’s a freak.
EA: He’s so good.
PM: Yeah. He’s so good.
EA: Intimidating in the best way.
PM: Oh, the best way.
EA: Incredible. I adore him. What was your favorite scene to film? And is there a scene that felt good when you were shooting it, but then once you saw the finished version with everything just really knocked you out?
PM: The scene, the two scenes to me that I will probably never forget, I won’t forget, there’s so much in this film that feels ingrained in me, but the scene with me and Jessie when I leave for the second time after Hamnet has died. And it’s a nonverbal one shot through the window, where we didn’t discuss any blocking. I feel like I couldn’t have done that five years ago. I couldn’t have done that two years ago, and I couldn’t.
I think Jessie’s just one of the finest actors to be walking on this earth. And I felt like we were going toe to toe and holding each other and trying to break each other apart at the same time. And none of that was pre-planned. And you hope that nothing is ever pre-planned, but it depends on how a director works. We just did not discuss what was going to happen.
So when Jessie swings at me, it’s a real test of whether you’re listening because obviously your body doesn’t want to be slapped in the face. So you’re like … When I watch it, I’m like, “Oh, that’s two people who are physically communicating, capital C.” And the fact that Chloé isn’t afraid of us going out of the frame. You can hear the breathing and you don’t have to say anything to understand that there’s massive love and massive heartbreak there. And there’s an inevitability to this separation that she doesn’t understand yet, but you can see on his face, maybe the seeds of why he has to go.
And then the scene where saying, “To be or not to be,” by the river, but also the rehearsal scene with Hamlet and Ophelia, I felt like particularly that scene, I think I got to communicate something personal to me about what it is about acting that I love. And it’s not about the words. It’s about like … It’s very hard sometimes to have a sincere or to get to express a sincere articulation about the craft that you love. And actually, even though he’s directing that, he’s expressing the thing that I love about acting, which is I want to see actors mean it.
It’s not about pain or punishment, but it’s like sometimes that has to be true for you to do something accurately. And it’s not that they’re fumbling the lines. It’s he is chasing authenticity. And that’s a fun thing to get to communicate and I’m really proud of that. And also that wasn’t in the script initially. And it’s something again that Chloé just wanted me to lead on. And she was like, “I want you to think about what would be a meaningful thing for Will to rehearse.”
And those lines just jumped out to me as like, “I am myself, it were better that my mother had not borne me.” It doesn’t feel like that’s Hamlet’s words. It feels like that’s Will’s sense of self-hatred. And maybe the actor … like in Noah’s instance, there’s a cruel trick that Chloé played where she didn’t give him the lines until the night before. So there’s a real gorgeous earnestness in both El and Noah’s work where they’re really trying, they’re not acting, getting it right. They are in an actor’s worst nightmare of getting the sides the night before, you’ve got a fucking barking director going like, “Be better.”
But then you get to suddenly like … It was fun to get to play something big in those moments, get to kind of explode in a way that didn’t feel like it was too big for my body, which is a fun thing to communicate.
EA: It’s amazing that Chloé, just as a creator, isn’t so precious about not allowing changes in that gives everybody-
PM: Gives everyone an opportunity to express, because ultimately it’s like, whether it’s in the book or not, I think the audience learns a lot about him in that moment because you’ve just seen him run away from his family and then very quickly you get an insight into how he is expressing his pain.
EA: Yeah.
PM: And it’s clever.
EA: It really is.
PM: Yeah.
EA: I know you really like talking about the people that you work with. And I think that it’s because whether it’s Daisy or Andrew or Josh or Frankie or Jessie, it’s because it just comes through.
PM: Yeah.
EA: There isn’t a way to fake it, I don’t think, what we see with you and your co-stars and vice versa.
PM: No, it requires a meaning of like, maybe it’s not politically correct to say it, but I go in with the absolute intention of falling in love with the people that I’m working with. Even if it is we’re not working in a romantic context, oftentimes you are. But I think you’re doing the form of disservice if that isn’t the clear intention.
So then you don’t have to worry about acting being in love. You can just love and respect and admire the person. And I feel deeply protective over the people you’ve just mentioned. And I think that comes through on the screen and I feel very protected by them. And it means that you can go to places as a creative where you don’t feel judged by the other person, which is a very important thing, I think.
EA: You were a producer on The History of Sound, your first time in that capacity. Is that in your blood now?
PM: Oh, for sure.
EA: Do you want to produce again? What kind of stories do you want to champion?
PM: Well, famously I’m retiring now (both laugh), so it’s a one and done producer. No, there’s a couple of things percolating in the background, but I think it’s definitely not the priority. I think acting is hard enough as it is, but it is something that when the right material comes along and you build a career that it’ll make things easier to get off the ground. And that’s the great privilege at the moment is that I never imagined that that would have been possible five years into a career.
EA: (laughs) Exactly.
PM: We’ll keep the fire burning on that front, but there’s nothing imminent. Maybe as I come out of my second retirement.
EA: Your next Cher farewell tour.
PM: Exactly. (laughs)
Hamnet is currently in select theaters with an expansion on January 16.
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.
- 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival Lineup: ‘Ready or Not 2,’ ‘I Love Boosters’ and the Return of David E. Kelley - January 14, 2026
- Interview: Paul Mescal on the Creative Freedom of ‘Hamnet’ and Finding Magic and Love with His Co-Stars - January 14, 2026
- ‘Sinners’ Leads Guild of Music Supervisors (GMS) Nominations - January 14, 2026
2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival Lineup: ‘Ready or Not 2,’ ‘I Love Boosters’ and the Return of David E. Kelley 
Interview: Paul Mescal on the Creative Freedom of ‘Hamnet’ and Finding Magic and Love with His Co-Stars 
‘Sinners’ Leads Guild of Music Supervisors (GMS) Nominations 
Denver Film Critics Society (DFCS) Nominations