How did this book come to you?
I was driving through New Mexico to the Telluride Film Festival and that's when Amblin [Steven Spielberg’s production company] called me about this project. The reception went on and on, and they said that they were talking about Shakespeare's wife and the death of their son. I just thought, “There are so many things in this sentence that I have no personal connection to,” so I said no. Then, a few hours later, I met Paul Mescal for the first time. [at Telluride]. I didn't know who he was because I hadn't seen Normal People – his career had changed a lot in a short period of time. But I sat with him next to the stream and just felt something for him. There is a boiling anxiety in him, like an animal, like a steppe wolf, who just wants to break out. That's why he creates. I asked him, “Have you ever thought about playing young Shakespeare?” And he said, “Wait, are you talking about Hamnet? I loved the book so much! You should read it.”
What about the book, when you read it, did you feel like you were the right person to make a movie?
I still I wasn't sure if I was right. Only recently did I think: perhaps I am that same person. You just don't know. You have to look for the signs that say, “Yes, you are,” and these synchronicities, these signs, are what I create from. It's normal to have this doubt. When I read the book, it seemed to me that the internal landscape was described so beautifully. Usually I need to really get to know, say, Brady. [Jandreau] from “The Rider” for such a long period of time to understand his inner landscape in order to then bring it to life on the screen. But Maggie has already done this work for all the characters. I thought, “This is my plan.” And there is a rhythm to the way she writes. He has a heartbeat – very similar to me. I later learned that her favorite director was Wong Kar-wai, whose work gave me the desire to make films many years ago.
The exterior scenery in the film is so vibrant. Your first three features were set in the American West, and much of Hamnet takes place in the woods. You filmed in Wales and Herefordshire. Can you tell me how you found these places and what you liked about this completely unusual natural landscape?
The natural world has been a big part of every film I've made, and now that I'm in my forties, I can look back and say that the reason is that I've always had a deep fear of death, and that drives my work. When you are afraid to die, you cannot live fully. I know this deep inside. At night, when the lights go out, I lie – I know that I am not living a full life because I am so scared. I don't feel safe in this world. When you go out into nature, you develop a very embodied spirituality that is not dependent on anyone else. It is the security you feel when you become one with your surroundings. All our great prophets go into nature to return with a message. So that's part of working on your own shit.
When I was in my thirties, I was more of a pioneer: I went west in search of treasure. I wanted to go as wide as possible, chasing horizon after horizon. The camera is insatiable. He wants to take over everything. I was always on the move. Then, in my forties, after a midlife crisis, I realized I couldn't keep running from myself. And the forest is the opposite of the plain. The forest is deeply feminine. It forces you to stay put, and when you stay still, you have nowhere to go but to the underworld—and to yourself, where all your shadows are.
The first time I visited a forest in Wales with my cameraman Lukasz [Żal]We wanted to find a language for the film or just let the forest tell us what the film is about beyond what we read in the book. Just before this, I was in Kyiv with a man who was filming a documentary about a strip of forest on the front line. When I left Kyiv and went to Wales and we were in this beautiful spring forest, I was taking footage from the front line in Ukraine and I saw these dark black holes in the ground, and sometimes they were mines. And then I walked through our forest in Wales and saw these black holes created naturally. I had such a strong emotional reaction to it. I started crying. I sat next to this black void because it comes after us all. No matter how unimaginable what is happening in the world, in the end there is a bittersweetness to the great equalizer. In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote: “All that lives must die, / Passing through nature into eternity.” For me, this eternity is love. And then Lukash runs up and says: “I understand this! We need to film this hole!” I thought, “Ah, that's what the movie is about.” We consider nature to be the head of department. He works with us all the time.
