Interview: Jessie Buckley on “Hamnet.”

Six years ago, Chinese director Chloé Zhao made her breakthrough with “Nomadland,” which won the Oscar for best film, best director and best female lead (Frances McDormand). A low-key road movie about a wandering woman forced to take temporary odd jobs alongside other poor retirees in the American West.

The “port” moves in completely different environments. Here we follow young Latin teacher William “Will” Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) as he shuttles back and forth between his growing family in the English countryside and plague-stricken London. In Hamnet, an adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s book of the same name, William Shakespeare explores his relationship with his wife Agnes (better known as Anne) Hathaway and the couple’s family life together.

– Shakespeare’s portrait was only created after his death. What Maggie does so beautifully in her book is approaching the truth through poetry – because here we don’t really know. Sometimes metaphor captures reality better, says Chloé Zhao.

During Shakespeare’s life and the work hovers in the background – one can only imagine the drama unfolding in the theater in London – it is Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley) who is at the forefront of the story. The fact that her name is Agnes and not Anne, as she is better known, is explained in an archive find:

– Her father’s will stated “my daughter Agnes”. Maggie felt that historians had understood not only her personality and relationship to the hindfoot, but also her name. When it comes to historical women, it’s important to look at history with a pinch, perhaps even a whole bucket, says Chloé Zhao.

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In one of the film’s first scenes, Agnes Hathaway is curled up between the roots of her favorite tree. She returns there again and again throughout the film – to gain strength or out of sheer desperation after the greatest losses. Agnes is an outsider, an outcast, and is eyed for her strange abilities to decipher signs in nature. There are rumors circulating in the area that she is the daughter of a forest witch.

Maybe the “port” seems to be suspect that it is their channel into mysticism that Shakespeare falls for. Jessie Buckley was also touched by this side of Agnes when she first saw the script. Buckley (“Fargo,” “Women Talk”) described the role as one of the “most profound, human experiences” she has ever had.

– I think that all artists try to go beyond what we can see and logically understand. “We are all looking for something greater, something that can connect us to the mysterious,” she says.

Buckley’s portrait was praised by a unanimous group of critics. She has already been awarded a Golden Globe statuette and is also one of the favorites to take home an Oscar statuette in mid-March. During her preparation, Jessie Buckley appeared in stories such as “A Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion and “Faith, Hope and Carnage” by artist Nick Cave. Above all, the preparatory work consisted of trusting your intuition.

– I never want to project an idea of ​​a woman or a character until I get to know her inside and out. For a few months I trusted my gut and slowly found the ingredients for the figure. I collected images, wrote music, recorded my dreams… And in the end, on set, in meeting everyone, you find a common story, she says.

The question that remains What hangs over the drama is whether Shakespeare wrote “Hamlet” to cope with the loss of his son Hamnet. Was the piece a way to immortalize him?

“I have always felt it was very unfair that no one has made the connection between this boy, Hamnet, and the play ‘Hamlet,'” author Maggie O’Farrell said of the matter. In her book she repeats what some Shakespeare scholars claim: that the two names were considered identical at the time.

In this way, “Hamnet” explores the power of art and its ability to create catharsis. While working on the film, Jessie Buckley reflected on what storytelling means to her own life.

– Storytelling has always been crucial for me to feel free and alive, both in the world and in relationships with those around me. Every time I do a job I feel like: I don’t know how to be a person. “I’m trying to figure it out along the way, and I’m trying to become a little more human every day by delving into the depths of everything that’s uncomfortable about being human,” she says, continuing:

– I can never imagine what Agnes went through. But I understood that you never stop looking for the light – you never stop looking for the one you love and you can find him in the smallest situation, she says.

For director Chloé Zhao, art has been a way to process the adversities and mysteries of life since she was a child. As a young woman, she wrote fanfiction online and only later understood why.

– It helped me both in my youth and today to understand why things happen and why I feel the way I feel. Now I can understand on an intellectual level that when I wrote as a child, it was about feeling connected to the people the stories reached, says Chloé Zhao.

“Love doesn’t die, it changes,” the production notes for “Hamnet” say. Chloé Zhao calls “The Port” the highlight of her artistic journey – her four previous films have taken her here. Working on “Hamnet” taught her about loss, tragedy and love. Those are great words, but it’s also a great topic that she tackled.

– I have learned to let go a little, to allow myself to surrender to love a little more. And I understood that letting go can also be love. It’s difficult, says Chloé

Zhao.