Chloe Zhao looked blankly

How did this book come to you?

I was driving through New Mexico to the Telluride Film Festival, and that’s when Amblin [Steven Spielberg’s production company] Contact me about this project. The reception was in and out, and they were saying it was about Shakespeare’s wife and the death of their son. I just thought, there are a lot of things in that sentence that I have no personal connection to, so I said no. A few hours later, I met Paul Mescal for the first time [at Telluride]. I didn’t know who he was, because I didn’t see “Ordinary People” – his career had changed so much in a short period of time. But I sat by the table with him, and I felt something for him. There is intense discomfort inside him, like an animal, like a steppe wolf, that just wants to explode. That’s why he creates. I asked him, “Would you ever consider playing a young Shakespeare?” And he said, “Wait, are you talking about Hamnet? I loved the book so much! You should read the book.”

What about the book, when you read it, made you feel like you were the right person to direct the film?

I Still I wasn’t sure if I was right. Only recently did I think, I think I was the one. You just don’t know. You have to look for the signs that say, “Yes, you are,” and these synchronicities, these signs, are where I create from. It’s okay to have that doubt. When I read the book, I thought the interior landscape was described very beautifully. Normally I would have to recognize Brady, for example [Jandreau] From “The Knight”, for a long period of time to understand his inner landscape, so that I could then embody it on the screen. But Maggie really did that work for all the characters. I thought, this is my plan. There is a rhythm to the way you write. She has a heartbeat, much like mine. She later discovered that her favorite film director was Wong Kar-wai, whose work made me want to make films many years ago.

The outdoor scene in the film is very lively. Your first three films were set in the American West, and much of “Hamnet” takes place in a forest. I have filmed in Wales and Herefordshire. Can you tell me about how you found those locations and what resonated with you about this very different landscape?

The natural world has been a huge part of every film I’ve made, and I can now, in my 40s, look back and say it’s because I’ve always had a deep fear of death, and that’s what drives my creativity. When you are afraid of death, you are unable to live fully. I know that deep down. At night, when the light goes out, I lie there – I know I’m not living my life to the full, because I’m so terrified. I don’t feel safe in this world. When you go into nature, you develop a spirituality that is very embodied and not dependent on anyone else. It is the security you feel when you become one with your surroundings. All our great prophets go to nature to return with a message. So this is part of working on my shit.

In my 30s, I was like a pioneer: going west to find treasures. I wanted to go as wide as possible, chasing horizon after horizon. The camera is not satisfied. He wants to capture everything. I was always on the move. Then, in my 40s, after my midlife crisis, I realized I couldn’t keep running from myself. The forest is the opposite of the plains. The forest is deeply feminine. It causes you to remain still, and when you remain still, you have nowhere to go but to the underworld, to yourself, where all your shadows are.

When I visited the woods in Wales for the first time with cinematographer Lucas [Żal]We wanted to find a language for the film, or to let the forest tell us what the film was about, beyond what we read in the book. I was in Kiev just before that, with someone who was making a documentary about a strip of forest on the front line. When I left Kiev and went to Wales, and it was this beautiful spring forest that we were in, I would get some shots of the front line in Ukraine, and I would see these dark black holes in the ground, and sometimes they would be land mines. And then I was walking around in our woods in Wales and I would see these naturally made black holes. I had a huge emotional reaction to it. I started crying. I sat next to this black void, because it’s coming for all of us. No matter how unimaginable what happens in the world, there is the sweetness and bitterness of the great tie in the end. In “Hamlet,” Shakespeare wrote: “All that is in life must die, / And pass through nature forever.” For me, this eternity is love. So, Lucas ran up and said, “I get this! We have to film this hole!” I said, oh, that’s what the movie is about. We regard nature as a department head. He works with us constantly.