Photos: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, & More Attend TIFF Premiere of HAMNET

Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, starring Paul Mescal, Olivier Award-winner Jessie Buckley, Emily Watson, and Joe Alwyn, recently held its Canadian premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The movie will receive a limited Thanksgiving release on November 27th, ahead of a wide release beginning on December 12th. Take a look at photos from the premiere event below. 

From writer/director Zhao, Hamnet tells the love story that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet. The film is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 New York Times bestselling novel, which has sold 2 million copies in the UK and US and has been translated into 40 languages. O'Farrell worked with Zhao on the film's screenplay. The book has also been adapted for the stage by Lolita Chakrabarti, and was recently played in the West End in a production directed by Erica Whyman. 

In a recent Vanity Fair article, it was revealed that the movie recreates Shakespeare’s Globe theater during 1600, the year in which the original production of Hamlet takes place in the film. “For the first two days in the Globe, I was genuinely lost. I felt untethered,” said Jessie Buckley, who plays Agnes Shakespeare. “You’re at the mecca of where Hamlet is born—everything that we’ve gone through was culminating to this point.” Read the full story here and check out newly released first-look photos of the theater here.

In a previous interview with British Vogue, Mescal shared, "That book – it’s just devastating. I can’t wait. If I told a younger version of myself that this would be [shooting] this year, I wouldn’t believe it. I’ve obviously been in a film with Jessie before [Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter] but we’ve never shared the screen or a working process together. I think she’s one of our present-day greats. And Chloé is somebody I can’t wait to get in the weeds with, and get into the heads of those characters."

Warwickshire, 1582. Agnes Hathaway, a natural healer, meets the Latin tutor, William Shakespeare. Drawn together by powerful but hidden impulses, they create a life together and make a family. As William moves to London to discover his place in the world of theatre, Agnes stays at home to raise their three children but she is the constant presence and purpose of his life.

When the plague steals 11-year-old Hamnet from his loving parents, they must each confront their loss alone. And yet, out of the greatest suffering, something of extraordinary wonder is born. 

Photo Credit: Eric Charbonneau