All posts tagged: hamnet

‘Both my sons were cast in Hamnet – I was very honest with them about the life of a child star’

‘Both my sons were cast in Hamnet – I was very honest with them about the life of a child star’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Watching one of your children star in an Oscar-nominated film is an experience that very few people will get, so to see two of them take to the big screen together is almost unheard of. However, that’s become a reality for Coronation Street star Katy Cavanagh – whose sons Jacobi, 12, and Noah, 21, are in Hamnet. The Chloé Zhao drama, based on Maggie O’Farrell’s book of the same name, is up for eight gongs at Sunday’s Academy Awards, having broken hearts with its portrayal of William Shakespeare and wife Agnes losing their son Hamnet. Jacobi stars in the titular role, while his older brother – whose credits already include A Quiet Place and Ford v Ferrari – takes on the role of an actor playing Hamlet in the play’s first-ever production. Having spent the last few months attending award ceremonies …

The rise of Jessie Buckley – from reality TV to Hamnet and Oscars history | Ents & Arts News

The rise of Jessie Buckley – from reality TV to Hamnet and Oscars history | Ents & Arts News

Published by Daniella Wilson

In an unusually unpredictable Oscars race, there is only one moment experts agree is a dead cert – Jessie Buckley, on stage once again, to collect the award for best actress. The big honours started with a Critics Choice award in January. A Golden Globe followed, then a BAFTA, and most recently, a statuette at the Actor Awards. Buckley is the only acting nominee to take home all four this year, and she has picked up other smaller awards, too. The Oscar, it seems, is hers to lose. Latest updates – The Oscars Image: Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Joe Alwyn as Bartholomew in Hamnet. Pic: Agata Grzybowska/ Focus Features Gold Derby, the LA based authority when it comes to awards predictions, rates her chance of winning at an almost unbeatable 97%. “It’s really been a crazy award season, it’s been pretty unprecedented,” says Debra Birnbaum, the site’s editor-in-chief. But Buckley, she says, “is a sure thing… a pretty safe bet”. If Buckley does win, she will make history – the first Irish actress …

The case for Hamnet to win best picture

The case for Hamnet to win best picture

Published by Daniella Wilson

To be or not to be? It probably shouldn’t be a question. Somehow, for many pundits and critics, Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s acclaimed historical fiction novel Hamnet has become something of a villain this Oscars season. It’s a bizarre take when the tragedy has so much to offer. The film tackles a lesser-known element of William Shakespeare’s life: the loss of his son Hamnet. Like O’Farrell’s novel, though, this text primarily centres its experience on Shakespeare’s wife and Hamnet’s mother, here named Agnes. Portrayed with ferocity and heartbreaking nuance by Irish triple-threat Jessie Buckley, Agnes is a spiritual, earthy and misunderstood figure — one who draws the attention of Shakespeare in his youth (a moving Paul Mescal) and before his success as a playwright in London. Primarily set in the pastoral setting of Stratford-Upon-Avon, we see how the Shakespeare clan grows in size following Agnes and Shakespeare’s wedding, with the pair welcoming three children and living an idyllic life as William’s career in London begins to take off. However, the true crux of …

Jessie Buckley on Her Oscar-Tipped Turn in ‘Hamnet’ and ‘The Bride!’

Jessie Buckley on Her Oscar-Tipped Turn in ‘Hamnet’ and ‘The Bride!’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Jessie Buckley, this year’s best actress Oscar frontrunner for her portrayal of Agnes Shakespeare in Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet and the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, is an Irish stage and screen actress who has been described by The Observer as “one of the most exciting actors of her generation,” by Vanity Fair as possessing “both dazzling charisma and a remarkable authenticity” and by The New York Times as having “a reputation for playing complicated roles with devastating power,” adding, “Few other actresses of her generation can gain access to such a wide spectrum of emotions, or seem as willing to risk being disliked for exploring the tougher ones.” Over just a decade on the big screen, Buckley, 36, has already given a host of memorable performances. She earned particular acclaim for her work in 2018’s Wild Rose, in which she played a Scottish ex-con who dreams of being a country music star, and for which she received a best actress BAFTA Award nomination; 2021’s The Lost Daughter, in which …

Baftas 2026 winners: I Swear, One Battle After Another, Hamnet and Sinners dominate awards

Baftas 2026 winners: I Swear, One Battle After Another, Hamnet and Sinners dominate awards

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet went home empty-handed at Sunday’s Baftas, after a little-known British actor named Robert Aramayo pulled off a shock Best Actor win. Aramayo, the star of the British drama I Swear, held back tears during his acceptance speech, saying: “I absolutely can’t believe it. I can’t believe that I’m looking at people like you, in the same category as you, never mind that I’m stood here.” While DiCaprio didn’t win Best Actor, his film One Battle After Another was otherwise the big winner of the night, taking home six trophies, including Best Picture and Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson. During one of his speeches he paid tribute to his long-time first assistant director Adam Somner, who died in 2024. The film additionally won the awards for Best Cinematography and Best Editing. …

BAFTA Awards 2026 Winners List Film

BAFTA Awards 2026 Winners List Film

Published by Daniella Wilson

And the BAFTA goes to… Those words are once again the focus in London Sunday night at the 79th BAFTA Film Awards ceremony, hosted by Alan Cumming, the presenter and producer of The Traitors U.S., at London’s Royal Festival Hall. The BAFTA nominations set up a thrill ride for the British Academy honors, with Paul Thomas Anderson’s political thriller One Battle After Another earning 14 nods, narrowly edging out Ryan Coogler’s vampire film Sinners with 13, and Chloé Zhao’s Shakespearean heartbreaker Hamnet and Josh Safdie’s ping-pong caper Marty Supreme getting 11 nods each. Other top BAFTA nominees include Joachim Trier’s drama Sentimental Value and Guillermo del Toro’s gothic epic Frankenstein, which earned eight BAFTA noms each, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ black comedy Bugonia and Kirk Jones’ Tourette Syndrome advocate dramedy I Swear with five each. First-time BAFTA nominees in the performance categories include Robert Aramayo, Odessa A’zion, Rose Byrne, Chase Infiniti, Michael B. Jordan, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Stellan Skarsgård, and Teyana Taylor. Among BAFTA nomination records are Zhao’s Hamnet as the most-nominated film by a female director ever, and Coogler’s Sinners as the most-nominated film by a Black director in the British Academy’s history. At the BAFTA Film Awards 2025, Conclave (best film) and The Brutalist (best …

Hamnet is ‘improbable’ fiction, Shakespeare thespian, says Sir Ian McKellen

Hamnet is ‘improbable’ fiction, Shakespeare thespian, says Sir Ian McKellen

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Hamnet may be about to win big at the Oscars, but Sir Ian McKellen won’t be voting for Chloé Zhao’s weepie to win Best Picture. The British actor, who became a member of the Academy in 1999 after receiving a nomination for Gods and Monsters, is a Shakespeare enthusiast who has played characters ranging from Hamlet and King Lear to Macbeth and Henry IV’s John Falstaff. But he is not a fan of Hamnet, the fictional drama based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel about the death of the Bard’s 11-year-old son in the 1500s. The film imagines how the tragedy might have inspired Hamlet. For McKellen, 86, this is a stretch too far. “I don’t quite get it,” the thespian said in a new interview. “I’m not very interested in trying to work out where Shakespeare’s imagination came from, but it certainly …

New Scientist recommends Hamnet, and its look at our links with nature

New Scientist recommends Hamnet, and its look at our links with nature

Published by skeptic

Jessie Buckley as Agnes in Hamnet AGATA GRZYBOWSKA/2025 FOCUS FEATURES LLC The film Hamnet, based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, rightly emphasises the relationship between people and nature. We meet Agnes (Jessie Buckley, pictured above), Hamnet’s mother and wife of William Shakespeare, in the woods, asleep. She is said to be the daughter of a wood witch, and we see her making poultices and herbal remedies. But understanding the interconnection between people and nature is something Shakespeare was very aware of. In Hamlet, the king asks after Polonius – knowing he is dead. The prince says he is at supper: “Not where he eats, but where he is eaten … We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots… A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.” Shakespeare places humans in the food chain. In the intelligent, moving Hamnet, O’Farrell and director Chloe Zhao recycle the essence of the dead boy into the fictional Hamlet. …

How to watch Hamnet – is it streaming?

How to watch Hamnet – is it streaming?

Published by Daniella Wilson

Ordinary, the best actress race tends to be one of the most competitive fields at the Oscars. But despite a stellar group of nominees – and some tremendous performances which somehow didn’t get a look in – this year’s race already seems all sewn up. Jessie Buckley’s magnificent turn in Chloë Zhao’s Hamnet has won near universal acclaim from critics, and the Irish star has already racked up a number of notable gongs as we count down to the Academy Awards in mid-march. It would be a major upset if she wasn’t to eventually collect the statuette. The emotional film – which is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel of the same name – is also nominated in a further seven categories, including best director for Zhao and best picture, although Paul Mescal was surprisingly left off the best supporting actor line-up. So, what’s all the fuss about? If you’ve not managed to catch it yet and want to see if it lives up to the hype – and the promise of tears – before the …