The Golden Globe and Actor Award nominee breaks down a pivotal scene from the movie.

Paul Mescal shares why he drank to get into character for ‘devastating’ Hamnet scene: I didn’t want to be ‘acting drunk’ (exclusive)

The Golden Globe and Actor Award nominee breaks down a pivotal scene from the movie.

By Gerrad Hall

Gerrad Hall is an editorial director at **, overseeing movie, awards, and music coverage. He is also host of *The Awardist* podcast, and has cohosted EW's live Oscars, Emmys, SAG, and Grammys red carpet shows. He has appeared on *Good Morning America*, *The Talk*, *Access Hollywood*, *Extra!*, and other talk shows, delivering the latest news on pop culture and entertainment.

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January 14, 2026 2:00 p.m. ET

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Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal in 'Hamnet'. Credit:

Agata Grzybowska/FOCUS FEATURES

He is known as the world's most famous playwright and England's greatest dramatist, but even William Shakespeare got writer's block.

Or at least he does in *Hamnet* (expanding into wide release on Friday, Jan. 16), which just won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama. In fact, it becomes a breaking point for young Will – played by Paul Mescal – in Chloé Zhao's movie, based on the 2020 novel by Maggie O'Farrell, who co-wrote the screenplay with Zhao. The story centers primarily on Agnes Hathaway, played by Jessie Buckley, who meets Shakespeare before he's Shakespeare, tutoring Stratford students in Latin.

Agnes and Will quickly fall in love, marry, and have their first child, Susanna. He focuses more and more on his writing, but he also becomes increasingly frustrated, uninspired by his surroundings — and it all comes to a head when, in the middle of the night, fueled by alcohol, he becomes distraught, angry even, banging his hands on his writing desk, at first dismissing Agnes as she tries to console him.

The scene plays out in one long take, with the camera fixed on the two; Mescal — who has earned Golden Globe and Actor Awards nominations, among others, for his performance in *Hamnet* — remembers that being a "key decision" Zhao made about the scene that never changed, which he tells ** felt "freeing as an actor."

But there was a decision he made that was perhaps a bit unorthodox but crucial to help get him into Will's very specific emotional headspace.**

"I drank for that scene," Mescal hesitantly admits. "But I don't want...it was an exciting thing for me because it wasn't something I'd done before. I don't think it takes away from the fact that there's lots of acting that goes on around that as well. It's not that that doesn't dictate... I don't think I would have felt safe doing that without that being in the hands of Chloé and Jessie. And I think it did open up this kind of concept of feeling very [disconnected]. I felt super close to Jessie throughout filming, but that day, I mean, you can see it in her eyes — we're not connected in a way that I think is really useful for the scene."

Paul Mescal in 'Hamnet'.

Agata Grzybowska / © 2025 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

Digging deeper, Mescal thinks the scene is about more than Will having writer's block, but rather, "about having something to express as an artist but not knowing where to put it."

Something the Irish actor is familiar with.

"It feels similar to the concept of where I grew up. I didn't grow up around actors or writers or art fundamentally. [It's not] something that I had access to," he explains on a recent Saturday morning in West Hollywood's Soho House, turning to look out the windows offering an expansive view of Los Angeles. "I know what that feeling is, to want to escape or go to a city where you feel like you can have access to conversation even. As much as he loves Agnes, I don't think she feels like somebody he can communicate his frustration [about] craft with her. It's not something that we see them talk about at all in the course of the film."

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Mescal says he's experienced his own version of Will's creative setback — "performer's block?" I ask — when he's felt a director become frustrated with his acting choices, making him frustrated and question himself in turn.

"I think acting has the capacity to be a very embarrassing industry. It's a very exposing place to work because you're ultimately working from your own impulse, but you're communicating something about someone else. So there's a very thin line between something that feels true and something that feels immediately false," he says. "And I think that's where Will is in that scene. He feels embarrassed, he feels angry. I think he would blow the place up and not think twice. I think that's where him abusing alcohol is coming from because it numbs that feeling. I think that's true for a lot of artists. That's why it felt like the right choice, actually, because I didn't want to be in that scene feeling like I was *acting* drunk. I wanted to be acting the scene. It's satisfying to me to see the great wordsmith lose vocabulary. He doesn't know what to say and then he says, 'I'm lost, I've lost my way.' I think that's devastating."

***Check out more from EW's *The Awardist*, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in TV, movies, and more.***

Mescal cites the moment as the first real fracture in Will and Agnes' relationship. Leading up to the scene, small things have started to build up with Will — we see him holding a screaming Susanna, and he confronts his abusive father in the workshop.

"I love that that section feels pretty kinetic to me," Mescal says. "There's a lot of inner fire going on. He's being pushed, and he's starting to crack."**

Ultimately culminating in a scene that he describes as an "actor's dream," especially because of the play-like nature of it. Mescal even describes the dimly-lit set as a theater space.

"I couldn't see anyone. There was no crew in front of me. The microphones were all placed on the desk in front. The camera was blacked out," he explains. "Chloe was tucked around the corner, I couldn't see her, couldn't see [cinematographer Łukasz Żal]. That's always the dream — you don't feel anything in terms of you don't feel the workings of a film set."**

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