{"id":238543,"date":"2026-01-10T22:37:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T22:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/238543\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T22:37:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T22:37:07","slug":"paul-mescal-on-how-films-ending-shows-the-impact-of-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/238543\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Mescal on How Film’s Ending Shows the Impact of Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPaul Mescal<\/a> stars in \u201cHamnet<\/a>\u201d as a grieving William Shakespeare whose struggle to write ultimately transforms his loss into the inspiration for \u201cHamlet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut early on in the film, cinematographer \u0141ukasz \u017bal and director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao<\/a> wanted to show how very different Will and his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) were, using framing and location to emphasize that contrast.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen they\u2019re first introduced, Agnes is a free spirit living where the composition feels open. Will, on the other hand, \u201cwas in his head,\u201d \u017bal says. \u201cHe is stuck in his family house, this place where he\u2019s always teaching. The windows are small, and he\u2019s always inside, always in a structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat framing reflected a sense of suffocation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u017bal wanted to capture the magic of Agnes and Will falling in love. \u201cWhat you feel, how you look at somebody\u2019s eyes. You\u2019re also very present, and the world looks beautiful,\u201d he explains. \u201cWhen they are together, we become closer and follow the emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, their son Hamnet\u2019s death changes everything. The skies become heavy, and there\u2019s less light in the scenes. The colorful energy dissipates. \u201cThey are alone in their frames, and they\u2019re not connected anymore,\u201d he says. \u201cThe camera is still, slow and uncomfortably slow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCostume designer Malgosia Turzanska<\/a> also reflected Will\u2019s journey through her designs.<\/p>\n

\n\tInspired by sportswear, Turzanska padded Will\u2019s clothing \u2014 almost as a form of protection \u2014 when Will is home with his emotionally abusive father.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also added slashes in his sleeves, which start off as tiny and become larger and longer.<\/p>\n

\n\tA tiny detail of his necklace \u2014 a toothpick \u2014 symbolized his father \u201cpicking\u201d at him. After Hamnet\u2019s death, Will travels to London, where he finishes \u201cHamlet.\u201d When the production opens at the Globe Theatre, Will plays the ghost. For this, Turzanska researched ghost costumes and discovered how linen was historically used to bury the dead. As a result, she put Will in linen cloth and covered him in clay. The cracked clay reflects how broken of a man he is. At the very end, he washes it off, and he\u2019s free.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn terms of the score, composer Max Richter<\/a> says that when Will washes off the clay, \u201cHe just sort
of breaks to pieces. This is the almost darkened version of this choral, vocal cloud, which we\u2019ve had from the beginning, connected to Agnes and nature. But it\u2019s almost like the cloud of a moonless night. So it\u2019s kind of super dark.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn playing Will and going on this journey, Mescal says, \u201cI didn\u2019t think about navigating it from, like, love to grief. I think I looked at it as analyzing somebody\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe adds, \u201cI was excited by the fact that I would get to show a lot of colors in terms of that, and the more that we could really make an audience feel these two people were madly in love with each other, the more that we would feel the loss of their connection in the middle act and the final act a little bit. So it was exciting to me, because I could see how it might feel to an audience to jump into the end when you\u2019re covered in clay. Visually, we see cracks in his face.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn that scene, Mescal says he felt the pressure to \u201cland the plane\u201d from a character\u2019s perspective. \u201cWe see how present Agnes\u2019 grief is with the children because, ultimately, she\u2019s at home with them for the vast majority of the film. And that\u2019s really Will\u2019s opportunity with an audience \u2014 to let them in, to see the cost of the loss of Hamnet and the impact that it has had on him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Mescal stars in \u201cHamnet\u201d as a grieving William Shakespeare whose struggle to write ultimately transforms his loss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[120995,93,311,61,60,270],"class_list":{"0":"post-238543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-anatomy-of-a-character","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-hamnet","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}