Paul Mescal, Maggie O'Farrell and Chloé Zhao on Hamnet: "You can't really have love without grief or grief without love"

Stars Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley, as well as director Chloé Zhao and co-screenwriter Maggie O'Farrell, attended the Irish premiere of Hamnet at Dublin's Light House Cinema on December 13 where they spoke to press about the film.

Hamnet, based on O'Farrell’s award-winning novel of the same name, follows William Shakespeare (Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Buckley).

The story imagines the emotional, domestic, and artistic repercussions after the world's most famous playwright and his wife lose their only son, 11-year-old Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), to the bubonic plague in 1596.

Four years later, the boy's father transposes his grief into his masterpiece titled with a common variant of his son's name: the legendary tragedy Hamlet.

During the red carpet event in Smithfield, Hot Press spoke with Mescal, Zhao and O'Farrell about the central themes of the story and how they ring true today.

Mescal, who has been shortlisted for a Golden Globe Award for his performance as a loss-stricken William Shakespeare, described how ideas of love and grief in the film transcend time and space.

"Grief [in Hamnet] is not topical grief, it's for all time," Mescal said.

"As long as human beings have been living and falling in love, they've been experiencing grief. You can't really have love without grief or grief without love.

"Maybe we have been slightly desensitised to grief in terms of the language we use around it, but I don't think it's a new thing. I think it's one of the oldest things human beings have ever been feeling."

Hamnet Premiere at Light House Cinema on December 13th, 2025. Copyright Abigail Ring/ hotpress.com

Mescal added he felt it was "reaffirming" to step into the role of a 16th-century character to portray such themes.

"It was reaffirming to spend time in that period in your imagination and feel things as these people," Mescal said.

"Although they come from a different country in a different time entirely and hundreds of years separate us, they still feel love, they still feel grief, they still feel joy, they still feel lust, they feel all of the things that we do. They just might be wearing different clothes."

O'Farrell said one of the most important themes adapted from her book to the film was "why we need art and where it comes from," which she said is "an eternal question."

"Also, the thing that really defines Shakespeare, one of the most important reasons he's endured for so long, is that he continually defies definition," O'Farrell said.

"His themes and his plays are adaptable to every single time and every single theory, in a sense, so it seems fitting for the film to be relevant now."

Hamnet Premiere at Light House Cinema on December 13th, 2025. Copyright Abigail Ring/ hotpress.com

O'Farrell and Zhao were both nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay, with Zhao on the shortlist for Best Director.

While William Shakespeare is the name many may immediately associate with the story of Hamnet, Zhao said it was women whom she wanted to bring forward in the story.

"In this film, what I want to focus on is the feminine consciousness, which is being in touch and connected to your body, to nature, to your ancestors," Zhao said.

"That's inherently feminine, and it is in men and women. And in this case, we have a female character who really embodies that."

Hamnet Premiere at Light House Cinema on December 13th, 2025. Copyright Abigail Ring/ hotpress.com

Representing the perspectives and experiences of Agnes Shakespeare was central to the script, Zhao — who worked with a largely female production team — explained.

"[Agnes lived] in a certain time in history when that was really pushed to the shadows, so to be able to bring her back into consciousness is exciting," Zhao said.

"I think it's been relevant for tens of thousands of years, but because we are really feeling the desperation of the lack of her, we're feeling the relevancy more than ever."

Hamnet is set to be released in Irish cinemas on January 9, 2026.