Alternate Best Actor 2025: Paul Mescal in Hamnet

Paul Mescal did not receive an Oscar nomination, despite being nominated for a SAG and a BAFTA, for portraying William Shakespeare in Hamnet.

Hamnet follows the life of Shakespeare through the relationship with his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley). Paul Mescal takes on the role of the bard in decidedly different terms than the more lighthearted depiction by Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love. This version attempts a more realistic, only within limits, depiction of Shakespeare and really in part his come up as a writer, though the ambitions of such are specifically within the context of his relationship with his wife and family with any focus on sort of what we know Shakespeare as being relatively limited till the third act of the film. Mescal fittingly doesn’t give importance to his Will, and what I mean by that is that there is no presentation of Shakespeare as a legend in the making. Rather we find him initially as a latin tutor who doesn’t exactly take his position all too seriously. And the nature of the structure of the film is Mescal essentially depicts different phases of the man’s life, because there are consistent though unstated time jumps throughout the film. This opening Mescal brings a sort of flighty quality of the ambitious young man stuck in a place where such ambition seems to fall upon mostly deaf ears if not even the direct ire of his rather strict and humorless father. Mescal effectively brings more so a boyish energy in these moments, an impishness really in creating the degree of immaturity of Shakespeare at this time and really leaving much room to grow as a man. 

His initial scenes with Agnes Mescal bring that same quality and his fascination with her is largely that initially. Where he creates the intrigue with her and is drawn into her unique qualities as a person, as this seeming connecting point with nature…atlhough I will say watching the film again that particular aspect only became more halfbaked if not a bit silly at times. Will brings his own value within the relationship as we get very directly his storytelling ability as he recounts the tale of Orpheus’s descent into the underworld. Mescal is truly great in this scene because for this scene he becomes a great storyteller and shows a preview of the storyteller that Shakespeare will become with his own material. Mescal reciting the tale though is captivating by managing to bring this very particular pace and rhythm as to entrance the audience into the particular tragedy of this story. Mescal has that particular ability here to emphasize a pause or a word that just brings together the emotion of the story and not just the plot of it. Making it so Mescal lets you feel the tragedy of Orpheus as he creates even the particular pace to build towards the climax of the piece and make you feel the impact of Orpheus's loss. It’s a standout moment for Mescal and suggests the greatness of Shakespeare before he has become great. 

We have our first kind of jump in time when Will impregnates Agnes, which even within that Mescal’s effective in bringing moments of immaturity though with the poetic license such as his delivery of having no ability for waiting, but afterwards with a quiet conviction of the man who will stand by his action to take Agnes as his wife. Where we get the first step to then just the playful married couple which is a very short segment, however Mescal’s good in playing Will, even as he’s going off to London to make a name for himself is still in the newlywed sort of state in his ease of excitement with wife and just a clear sense of love for her. Where we get another jump where it is now Will, Agnes and their three children including the young twins of Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) and Judith. Mescal again changes his presence a bit to now very much the more mature dad. We still get the spark of mischief when playing with the kids, however there is a greater sense of emotional maturity. Mescal’s pivotal scene with Jupe expresses this beautifully as he brings first this quiet delivery of a father very seriously tasking his son with being mature himself, before breaking and his repeated “will you be brave” where he so wonderfully changes to the fun loving father just wanting to play with his son. An element reinforced in his scene with Agnes discussing where they will live in the future, where she’s adamant to stay in the country meanwhile Will’s destiny is in the city. Mescal’s very subdued work illustrates the greater maturity of Will at this point with an honestly quieter sense of romance, where the warmth is still there but the emphasis now is on the contemplation of the future.

A future that becomes cloudy when while Will is away Judith falls ill, almost dies, followed by Hamnet also falling ill and dying. Mescal’s performance isn’t the one accentuated in these scenes but he’s still great in delivering the gravity of the loss from what we do see him. We see the initial reaction of pain and he is heartbreaking in bringing that so tangibly to life in these moments. The third act though takes Will again away from his family seemingly living within his grief on his own as he’s putting on one of his most famous plays named Hamnet. Where we get two similar scenes, one amazing one less so. The first being the scene of the actors playing Hamlet and Ophelia the off to the nunnery speech, where Mescal’s incredible in his work as he’s pacing about and continuing to ask them to play it “again”. His delivery of again, his expression, is filled with so much complicated emotion as we see the pain of his loss, the frustrations with his life, and most importantly the rage of the world. Where Mescal is outstanding in his own delivery of the speech to the actors. As I love that Mescal is able to deliver it as the meaning not so much as it is in the play but as it represents Will in this moment. Where there is some anger of the director struggling with his actors, but even more so the rage against the world which the speech represents in itself as Hamlet notes the pathetic state of man. Mescal doesn’t become Hamlet in the moment, he is Shakespeare in the moment, completely conveying his emotional state behind the words so powerfully. 

Needlessly doubling down the film immediately has Will alone where he recites “To be or Not to Be” as he seemingly contemplates suicide at the docks of London. I say needlessly because the previous scene I think made essentially the same point more naturally, more efficiently and more effectively, using a less frequently spoken part of Hamlet, meanwhile this is arguably Shakespeare’s most famous. Having said this I hang none of this at Mescal’s door, and while not as powerful as his previous scene, Mescal still delivers on the speech by again playing as the writer reflecting on his work rather than Hamlet, here less rage and just pure sorrow into the words that reflect upon death. Although I’d argue his less "substantive" in terms of Hamlet’s text work as the “ghost” when we finally see the production, it also better serves the idea. Where Mescal combines the sense of genuine emotion and performative emotion, delivers this quiet grief stricken darkness to the ghost as he delivers his message to Hamlet on stage. Mescal conveying in the moment the burden to be caught within this state of death and really in the painful state of grief. While not the focus of the final moments, Mescal’s reactions are pivotal as he reacts to the crowd and really his wife’s reaction to the end of Hamlet…well forgetting Fortinbras and all that but I digress. My joke aside, Mescal is great in the way it is less of a cure but rather the grief is there but intertwined with hope. Hope in his eyes that he and Agnes will find any closures and catharsis in this attempt at a reflection of their loss. Mescal finding just the right subdued even meekness in the man only carefully looking up to see if he has made the connection. Although Mescal became an afterthought within the praise of the film, though I think in part due to the misguided category fraud, it is unfortunate as his performances is essential to the film. First in creating the jumps in time, where we don't see the steps, yet Mescal makes each phase feel natural from the last in creating detail and nuance in the life of Shakespeare here presented with a purposeful vagueness at times. Mescal never feels vague, and even champions the film's most overt moments in terms of referencing the bard. And while I do have mixed feelings on the two most overt uses of the words before the ending, none of those feelings come from Mescal who always finds the power in the words but power not from Shakespeare as a literary legend but from Will as a man.