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“Hamnet” is, without question, the most devastating movie of the year.
But while making the lauded Shakespeare drama (in theaters now), Jessie Buckley and Chloé Zhao learned to dance through the pain.
The actress and director gleefully break into song as they recount Zhao’s now-legendary “dance takes” with the cast, who would cut a rug to The Cardigans and Frankie Valli at the end of particularly heavy filming days, often in full Elizabethan garb.
“When you have a lot of tension, you just need to shake your body, and I saw how the dancing bonded everyone right away,” Zhao says in a joint interview with Buckley, who requested pop singer Raye for their boogie-filled photo shoot earlier in the day.
It was a newfound form of therapy for Zhao, 43, who previously found other ways of coping with her similarly emotional “Nomadland,” which won the best picture Oscar in 2021.
“Frances McDormand was dancing in the desert!” Zhao recalls facetiously. “No, we just drank tequila (laughs). That was more how we dealt with that.”
Chloé Zhao 'healed parts' of herself through making 'Hamnet'
Since scooping up a boatload of audience prizes at fall film festivals, “Hamnet” has steadily gained steam as an awards juggernaut, earning six Golden Globe nominations for best drama, actress (Buckley) and supporting actor (Paul Mescal). Oscar pundits, too, have all but engraved Buckley’s statue for her gutting, tear-stained turn.
Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 historical fiction novel, the film follows playwright William Shakespeare (Mescal) and his wild-eyed wife, Agnes (Buckley), whose relationship is splintered by the tragic loss of their young son, Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe). Will filters their unspoken grief into his now-classic play “Hamlet,” and together, the couple finds a cathartic way forward.
Buckley, 35, has inhabited live-wire characters before in “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” “Women Talking” and her Oscar-nominated “The Lost Daughter.” For her, Agnes felt like a culmination of all the women she’s played before: described as “untamable” and "a forest witch" in the novel, brimming with gale-force spirit and earthy mysticism.
“I’m interested in the bits of being a woman that are culturally kept hidden away. I want to bring those to the surface,” the Irish actress says. Agnes is equal parts ferocious and tender, and “she goes on such a heightened journey when life is too much. To lose your child is such an unimaginable possibility that I can’t fathom. There’s nothing beyond how that must feel, and she went through all of it.”
Buckley and her mental-health worker husband, Freddie, recently welcomed their first child earlier this year. But while filming “Hamnet” in 2024, she primarily looked to her resilient musician mom, Marina, who was back at work playing someone’s wedding literally two days after giving birth.
“My mother is in all my work and I love her deeply,” Buckley says. “She has been a real beacon in my life and continues to be one of the bravest people I know. I’ve learned a lot from her, as well as her mother. There’s something in Agnes that is ancestral; she’s very aware that there’s a lineage that’s way bigger than her and there will be something that lives beyond her.”
Zhao, meanwhile, was drawn to the themes of loss and memory in O’Farrell’s book, which course through her films “Eternals,” “The Rider” and “Songs My Brothers Taught Me.”
“It’s the very visceral way that she writes about Agnes’ relationship with nature and the unseen,” Zhao says. The Chinese-born filmmaker has long had a profound connection to the natural world, which stems from her "restricted" childhood and is now reflected in her movies.
“I experienced trauma at an early age that made me feel unsafe in my body and in my own feminine, so I became the opposite. I wanted to be a boy,” Zhao says. “I thought that would be safer, so I really pushed that part of myself down. But the older I got, the more I realized I need to integrate that (feminine energy), and one thing is to find a divine mother figure.”
Zhao is “not traditionally religious, so I was advised to look to nature for that level of unconditional love and acceptance,” she says. “Making these films is my own salvation. Through them, I can heal parts of myself.”
Jessie Buckley recalls the 'amazing moment' they became friends
Throughout production, Zhao led the cast and crew in daily meditations, and encouraged her actors to get in touch with their subconscious through dream coaching and body movement exercises.
“From the beginning, Chloé was asking us to be as human as possible,” Buckley recalls. “And because of that, I felt drawn to create in so many ways; I was kind of in a fever dream. I don’t know if I could have done it with a different director.”
The actress was introduced to Zhao at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival, where Mescal pitched the filmmaker on adapting “Hamnet” for the big screen. The women became fast friends: Not long after, Zhao was in a moment of “deep instability,” sitting in a Central Park hotel room late one night and reeling from a recent breakup, among other things.
“Suddenly I got a message from Jessie and she said, ‘Are you OK? Get in the car right now. Just take your toothbrush and I have everything else,’ ” Zhao recalls. “I went to her East Village apartment, she made me tea, and I just cuddled in her arms on the couch. Usually, directors are the ones keeping it together, and here she was taking care of me.”
“It was a really amazing moment,” Buckley adds. “We just cracked the seal and were open with each other from the jump. Because of that, I felt like, ‘Oh, this is going to be a totally different experience making this film.’ We can both just go to those places and be there for each other.' ”
Their genuine connection is evident, laughing and hugging as they sit side by side in a stale hotel conference room. They're grateful to have one another on this awards season journey, and feel like they're discovering new things about "Hamnet" as more people see themselves in the movie.
"It's so nice to do this with you," Buckley says, smiling as Zhao leans on her shoulder. "You know me so well. I love you."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jessie Buckley, Chloé Zhao opened up like never before making 'Hamnet'
Reporting by Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
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