Paul Mescal reveals what Hamnet taught him about love in his life
Paul Mescal has shared what Hamnet taught him about love in his life.
Hamnet taught Paul Mescal that he cannot be his best self without his loved ones.
The 29-year-old actor plays William Shakespeare in the drama film, which tells the story of the playwright’s marriage to Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley) and how the loss of their son Hamnet inspired Hamlet, and the Chloe Zhao-directed movie has given Paul a new outlook on life.
He told E! News: "If the film’s taught me anything, and it’s taught me many things, it’s that you can’t be a great version of yourself without the immense support from the people around you.
"As a society, we’ve become individualised and need to carve out our own path. And actually, it’s a hell of a lot more enjoyable and more exciting to do that in contact with people with a real desire to love and be loved."
Chloe thanked Paul for reminding her of the importance of vulnerability as she accepted the Best Film - Drama for Hamnet at Sunday's (12.01.26's) Golden Globe Awards, held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.
The 43-year-old filmmaker said: "Paul said something to me this morning, he said, making Hamnet made him realise the most important thing of being an artist is learning to be vulnerable enough to allow ourselves to be seen for who we are, not who we ought to be, and to give ourselves fully to the world, even the parts of ourselves we're ashamed of, that we're afraid of, that are imperfect, so the people we speak to, they can also learn to see themselves and fully accept themselves."
Elsewhere, Paul - who was first romantically linked with singer Gracie Abrams, 26, in June 2024, before they went Instagram official a year later as they attended the Glastonbury Festival in Pilton, Somerset, South West England, together - said Hamnet's ending shows the impact of grief.
He told Variety: “I didn’t think about navigating it from, like, love to grief. I think I looked at it as analysing somebody’s life.
"I was excited by the fact that I would get to show a lot of colours in terms of that, and the more that we could really make an audience feel these two people were madly in love with each other, the more that we would feel the loss of their connection in the middle act and the final act a little bit."
