Hammet It just wasn’t right for Sir Ian McKellen.
“I don’t really understand it,” the Tony and Laurence Olivier Award-winning actor admitted in an interview on Saturday The times.
“I’m not very interested in finding out where Shakespeare’s imagination came from, but it certainly didn’t just come from family life,” he noted.
Chloe Zhao’s film is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, which depicts the origins of William Shakespeare’s literary tragedy Hamlet.
The book tells the story of the death of the great playwright’s 11-year-old son, Hamnet’s death and the grief that follows.
O’Farrell’s story was inspired by the scholarly debate that highlights the foundations: Hamnet’s burial in 1596 and Hamlet‘s first staging four years later.
“As Hamnet races towards the finish line, as far as the Oscars are concerned, it will likely repeat the success of Shakespeare in Love, which had strange views on how plays are performed,” McKellen said.
“But Shakespeare is perhaps the most famous person who ever lived, so of course there’s some interest in what he looked like, what his relationship was with his family. And we can’t know that,” the Lord of the Rings star said.
He pointed out another irony in the imaginary story, saying, “The idea that Anne Hathaway has never seen a play? It’s unlikely, considering what her husband did for a living. And she doesn’t seem to know what a play is! I think there are some questions about the likelihood.”
The actor expressed his views on the subject with some authority, as he credits his early acting success to performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Royal National Theater in London.
Hamnet with Paul Mescal as Shakespeare, Jessie Buckley as Agnes or Anne Hathaway and also Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn and Noah Jupe.
