A Re-imagined William Shakespeare is Brought to Life by Paul Mescal while Jessie Buckley Wins Oscar for Plays Wife Agnes Who Copes with Their Son Hamnet’s Death

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Wednesday, 18 March 2026 14:38

Written by Brad Balfour

Ever since director Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet” was screened, there’s been lots of hype over the film. This has been happening particularly because of the performances by Irish-born Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley quickly led to Awards talk, with Buckley nabbing an Academy Award for Best Actress. The film is stirring further support, both for its nuanced performances and the rethinking of master playwright William Shakespeare’s life story. Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel of the same name, the mysterious life of the great bard is given a new and touching back story.

At age 11, Hamnet, Will and Agnes’ son, dies of the plague. That tragedy affects the couple profoundly, ultimately leading to much distance between the two. Will goes to London to develop his plays and a theater company. Finally, he debuts his new work, “Hamlet,” which is performed at the Globe Theatre. Agnes comes to see the work and connects with it and the actor playing Hamlet (Noah Jupe), seemingly reuniting the two and ultimately with Will as well.

Both Buckley and Mescal have been hailed as two within a generation of young actors creating profound work — especially out of Ireland — and garnering much praise along the way. Relative newcomer Zhao won an Oscar for her third feature, “Nomadland,” and has now made “Hamnet.” Many have declared it as a luminous and complex examination of an unusual family coping with loss and recovering through art.

This Q&A followed a recent screening of this film, and through heavy editing, provides a document which describes the many and unique ways in which the production was conceived and completed.

Q: Talk about your way into this. It’s not just the book, there’s so much more.

Chloé Zhao: Half of the time [it was] Maggie’s book and the world she’s created, the portal she’s opened to somewhere else by writing it, and the energy she conjures throughout the entire book. Then the rest is these guys.

Q: Right, But it is so much more than the book — especially with these actors.

Chloé Zhao: When you’re in your 40s — compared to when you’re in your 30s — you come down a little bit. In my 30s, I still had that kind of pioneer spirit where I wanted to go to the horizon and capture as many treasures as possible. Our cameras are usually quite insatiable and restless, and we wanted to see everything. Then in your 40s — in my 40s — after being in that crisis [after making Marvel’s “Eternals”], I realized the need to have the camera stay still and see the actors embodying the characters, conjuring their energies, and discovering how much a frame can hold some tension for an audience to experience. The result comes from really being able to work with cinematographer Lukács Żal  and our production director Fiona Crombie, as well.

Q: The film is beautiful and brings us into the 16th century, where storytelling was different. Two sequences, about Paul and about Jessie, [reveal] moments of storytelling in the woods, which are so cinematic. You get the feeling of Agnes [Buckley] being an incredible audience [for him] — a giving audience who understands storytelling in a way that’s primal. With Will [Mescal, you’re not showing off. It’s not like, “Oh, here’s this brilliant man.” Instead it’s simply a man who’s gifted at telling a story and capturing an audience. The sequence is so beautiful, how it sets up the characters.

Paul Mescal: That was one of those days for me, the closest I came to having a meltdown. I’ll tell you why. I did have a bit of a meltdown because I was suddenly confronted with — which was maybe naive of me — but suddenly when you’re confronted with the reality of what you’re trying to avoid, this concept of the great William Shakespeare. You’re confronted with the fact that you’re playing William Shakespeare, and have to tell a story. Not just any story, [but] the story of Orpheus and Eurydice [the myth bard who tries to bring his love out of Hades]. I was like, “Fuck, this is going to be [a challenge.]” But it was one of those [days]. It was like day three or four.

Me and Chloe had pretty robust conversations about what that should feel like. I think the three of us had a really important day on the set because it felt like our creative relationship and personal relationship could tolerate such robustness. I also felt very supported by Chloe and Jessie in that endeavor. That moment felt very exposing to me as an actor where it’s like, “Oh, you can’t step back from this. You can’t lean on an interiority with this. You’ve got to let the joy of the story come through, but not feel like you’re showing off as William Shakespeare.” It was tricky to tell [and follow] in the film.

Q: Talk about filming Agnes because she’s not a traditional heroine in this sense, but she’s so powerful. She’s been able to release so much power.

Jessie Buckley: I think before she meets him, there’s a lot of need in her. In some ways, [she] has been exiled for her contact with her need in her body. It’s at a time in history where people are starting to cut themselves off and move away from [the power of] touch, move away from nature and the body, really. Because of her uncompromising relationship to her body, to natural elements, she’s chastised and projected to be this witch and wild woman — too much for any man.

From their first collision, when they meet in that barn, they’re both unknowable to each other, but it’s a bit like two elemental plates colliding. Then she realizes that if he were to know who she was, would he be able to contain all of that [which] she is? Would she be able to contain all that she feels from this very simple act of touch that she does with her hands, which is kind of her compass. That’s the work where she kind of compasses herself to feel into people.

I guess this moment is so beautiful because it actually begins with a lot of defensiveness. That first [time] where they actually [connect] …. He chooses to come back and find her, even knowing who she is. There’s a lot of defensiveness. It’s like their first discovery of each other in some way, to listen to each other and to the way he talks, the rhythm that he talks in — to know that this is a man who feels so much more than a lot of other people that live around her. I think we could have the capacity to love and live and hold the biggest part of each other.

Q: Coming back to the sense of touch [that we see Agnes using in the film], that’s something that comes through. In addition to their love, of course, there’s the grief in this incredible story about family. When they set up that she should be pregnant in the scene with the entire family, it’s a wonderfully cinematic scene, very well edited. It’s edited in camera in a way and through the performance. Chloe, talk about staging that scene. It’s really brilliant.

Chloé Zhao: It is quite terrifying to have [this] in front of Emily Watson [who plays matriarch Mary Shakespeare, mother of William]. To go to her and say, “Maybe you should go back a little bit.” No. That was free-blocking, and was one of those moments when it worked. So we asked them, “Where would you like to be?” Then they all just went into the room and went, “I think I’m going to be here.” I think she was like, “You’re the first one. You just sat in front of the table, like, I’m going to be here.” Everyone else sort of found their spot. Then Lukasz runs around with his phone and gets the shots. But we do have some intentions. The goal was to see how much light was in one place. It’s one stage, one backdrop.

Q: It’s beautiful to watch that scene with Mary and Bartholomew [Hathaway, Agnes’ brother]. Bartholomew [played by Joe Alwyn] really comes across as the man of the house. He’s so young but he has to step into this kind of role that he wasn’t quite prepared for. Talk about building on Bartholomew in that sense. He’s the key to understanding so much about the impact family has on us, up to the final lines, where it sets open the heart.

Joe Alwyn: Yeah, I suppose in that scene specifically, he obviously doesn’t want it to happen but he’s holding on to a conversation which will then extend outside with Agnes. I think throughout, he’s someone who holds a lot of space for Agnes and is willing to stand and be there for her at those big moments. Regardless of [whether] they always ring true with him, he will — like a tree —  ust be there next to her. And so for that proposition of births or deaths or for the journey at the end, he’ll stand by her.

I liked the idea. It’s obviously in the book, and you see it in moments of flashbacks in the film — that the two of them kind of [forged a relationship] together outside of society, in the woods. With their slightly unusual upbringing, [there’s] the feeling that they were outsiders. He is an outsider as well and I think there’s a loneliness to that and to him. But there’s a strength in something that’s almost sacrificial. I think for him as well, everyone is him. He will continue to stand by her. I think it’s a really lovely relationship.

Q: With Mary Shakespeare, she’s the central adult in their lives. And that moment of understanding, of grief through her is tragic. But also you see how powerful an adult can be. You are teaching the daughter to say he’s gone, there’s nothing else you can do. She repeats that line. It’s such a strong character. Talk about working through Mary, because you’re very familiar with Shakespeare obviously. She’s your mother.

Emily Watson: You know, I think we reach a sort of central line at the end of the film where Joe says keep your heart open. I think Mary’s heart is closed at the beginning for sure. She lives with a violent man. And she lives in a very paranoid society where you’ve had your religion changed by the state not that long ago. You can’t speak openly about what you think, what you feel.

I also know Stratford-upon-Avon very well. My husband is from there. I spent a lot of time there and that’s still to this day a small town mentality. They’ve got an awkward little human town. It’s still very judgmental. And this young woman terrifies her because she is everything that the town is not. Yet she is Shakespeare’s mother. And it doesn’t come out of nowhere. My experience of making the film really was that it became impossible to carry on playing that strong, hard woman because of what was happening in front of my eyes. What these incredible actors were doing just kind of blew me open really. I didn’t necessarily know that that was my plan. There you go.

Q: It’s a performer’s gift. Chloe what you’ve done [is] also channeling the artist in certain ways. Talk about your focus on the set? How do you focus on where to look into this? Every performance here is amazing whether it’s centered or in a corner.

Chloé Zhao: I stay by the camera and look at the scene, maybe not rehearsing but sort of going through a take or two. But I ask them to be as embodied and present as possible. The best way for me to judge sometimes — I would say 30% — and intellectually I understand what distance means, what composition means. I went to film school and watched films, but I feel it in my body. I really do. I’m extremely sensitive and so, if I am where the camera is, I will be where you are. I can feel how much energy is coming at me.

Whether it’s enough or not, my stomach is tightening, turning so my throat feels dry and my hand tingles. I’m trying to use my own body as a cue as well to inform where the camera should be. If we could allow the camera to be another character. We talked about the camera being dead or being this omnipresent. I have to use my own body as a measurement. So any of the somatic exercises that they do to get themselves embodied, I try as much as possible to get myself there as well.

Q: Jacobi, as the youngest here [playing Hamnet], somatic exercises might be new for you. A lot of this may be new for you, but your performance in “Hamnet” is so interesting. We talked about the hands, so what did you take from the adults, the parents? How you [as Hamnet] put an arm on your sister, just like his mom would do to heal — it’s just such a great touch.

Jacobi Jupe: I think that’s what I saw. What the adults [were] doing a lot was trusting Chloe to guide them into this place where I think that we all went — which isn’t really a “place” but is at the same time. I think it’s where you go in your head and it’s just [about] complete trust. You just have access to your emotions in that way where you can go for it.

Chloé Zhao: That’s really beautiful.

Jacobi Jupe: We wouldn’t have been able to go there without you.

Chloé Zhao: Aww. Aww. Cookies for you.

Q: You enter the Globe [Theatre, where Shakespeare had his plays performed] and it’s a different level of performance that happens here. You have “Hamlet” being performed for the first time — it’s the first Hamlet [beautifully performed by Noah Jupe]. It’s a really tricky situation, so what was your experience? Chloe had to build that Globe.

Chloé Zhao: Yeah, not the whole thing, the CG [computer graphics] helped.

Noah Jupe: It was pretty darn close and realistic. I think me and Paul also got to do stuff in the back, like in the dressing rooms which were so detailed with swords and costumes and all this [stuff]. It felt really visceral and real. There was honestly such a great energy in there. For something that was built as a set, it felt extremely concrete and grounded.                                                                                                                                  

Paul Mescal: But not very safe with that…

Q: In developing that sequence, it’s not about perfection. It’s about the imperfection.

Chloé Zhao: How dare you — I’m just kidding.

Q: The idea of him discovering the power of what this performance could be — and would be going into the next few centuries. It’s a tricky thing, but it’s incredibly well done.

Chloé Zhao: Actually, Noah, you said something in the Q&A a couple of days ago. I didn’t even realize how he went through non-performing…

Noah Jupe: When I first got the project or heard about the project, it was like, “Fuck, it’s Hamlet.” But then I was like, “Okay.” Also, it’s the act of playing Hamlet and playing him at a time when there wasn’t as much pressure on Hamlet as [being this iconic] character. I kind of was like, “Okay. Actually, it’s not as bad as I think it is.” What was really nice about playing this character was the journey from performer to truth. And [it was about] starting off as an actor in the theatre, getting his lines right, focusing on the performance and the sword fight. Then [it was] moving to a place of seeing how much he’s affected the audience, and suddenly entering this place of complete truth.

I think we’re all trying to reach with our filmmaking [a place] of truly connecting to people, healing them and changing their lives. I think there’s these moments that happen very rarely in films, at least for me, where you enter a place of higher truth and are completely vulnerable. I felt that in the moment when Jessie [as Agnes] reached her hand out to me [while I’m playing Hamlet], so I felt that about this film as well.

Q: Chloe, while you were writing and directing “Hamnet,” was there anything new that you discovered in the editing process that was really different from the beginning, when you first had the inception of it.

Chloé Zhao: Oh my gosh, that editing period was really intense because the filming of it was like a huge Ayahuasca ceremony. The editing process is painful integration, and I think one of the most difficult things is what will go on. We cut a part that was really potent in the book that I thought was so important because after Hamnet died, there’s a long period of Will being in the house and not having space because everyone’s grief is so immense.

Then after that, there’s this very long period of Agnes frozen in the house but also looking, trying to find Hamnet, but she couldn’t find him. That is a big setup for the importance of The Globe. In the book, she used to be able to access the dead, but this time she couldn’t. It’s significant in the book, and we shot those scenes. I had to cut [them] because it was too long and also, just how much the audience can handle it.

Q: For you as the director and you all as actors [is the role somatics play in the making of this film. [This use of body movement exercises and techniques] is something that was unique about how you entered the [acting] space and built these spaces together. Talk about how you brought that up as a part of the process — creating a somatic connection.

Paul Mescal: That was a new thing [for me]. It reminded me of early drama school exercises in movement, but it hasn’t been a firm part of my process in films that I’ve done before. Essentially my and Jesse’s first day in rehearsals was like a tantric workshop, which is pretty full on. But when you start there you’re kind of like, there’s no bottom to any of this anymore. It’s just like we’re not communicating hardly at all. We skipped the heady parts where we were just in physical connection with each other. I don’t know. I felt like we didn’t dip our toes into the work. We kind of just jumped in and those exercises were incredibly useful for that.

Jessie Buckley: I think we all wanted [it] to be about being embodied and engaged. But also, for me, the best feeling of working is when you’re in a fluid, unconscious yet very alive state. I’m always trying to get myself into a very raw-like present state. And so I think what I remember [of] doing this job is that I’m an artist, and I’m here to create something from the truth of where I am. In meeting the work, it’s 50-50.

So anytime I feel like when it really starts cooking is, if you start to open a book or open a world is [like when] you open a script and you open a character. You have to start really listening to your unconscious, where your instincts are driving you, where your body is driving you. Who’s standing in front of you? How is that making you feel? How can you become braver to connect to that thing that’s in front of you, the world around you, and what’s going to help you get out of your head? Because your head is the worst. That’s when you get stuck. We became very alert and awake to our dreams.

For me, that became my kind of [liberation]. I’m not very good at working linearly, projecting an idea of where I think this day is going to go or what this character is going to do. I need something abstract. I need something that’s below the surface … that I have really no idea what it’s about. It’s an essence that can just navigate me to some unknowable place but feels attuned to the world that I’m already in. When you’re working with these amazing people, it’s easy.

Starring Ethan Hawke, The Film “Blue Moon” Documents The Night Lyricist Lorenz Hart Realizes His Partnership with Richard Rodgers is Over

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Tuesday, 17 March 2026 14:16

Written by Brad Balfour

Ethan Hawke as Lorenz Hart

Inspired by the letters of legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart and Elizabeth Weiland, director Richard Linklater developed the biographical drama “Blue Moon” — with a script written by Robert Kaplow. It stars veteran actor Ethan Hawke playing the diminutive Hart in his waning days before his untimely death at 48. Linklater and Hawke have worked together before — in the film “Boyhood” where it won significant notice and for the “Before” trilogy which also garnered award noms as well. After debuting at The New York Film Festival this Fall, the film is getting further attention and has led to various nominations of Hawke again including the Oscar short list for Best Actor.

Born Lorenz Milton Hart, the American lyricist was half of Rodgers and Hart — the legendary Broadway songwriting team. Some of his more famous lyrics include those for such standards as “Blue Moon,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” “Manhattan,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” and “My Funny Valentine” among many others. Born on May 2, 1895, in New York’s Harlem, to German-Jewish immigrant parents, Max M. and Frieda (Isenberg) Hart. Through his mother, he was a great-grandnephew of the German poet Heinrich Heine. (The elder of two sons, his brother, Teddy Hart, also went into theater and became a musical comedy star.)

On March 31, 1943, Hart slipped away from the opening night of “Oklahoma!” — the new hit Broadway musical his former creative partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) had written with Oscar Hammerstein II. Hart arrived at Sardi’s restaurant, where preparations were underway for the opening night celebration. The film follows Hart as he reflects on himself, his failed partnership with Rodgers, his obsession with 20-year-old beauty, Weiland (Margaret Qualley), and delusional hopes for the future. A few months later, the masterful writer was found dead on the streets.

In June 2024, Sony Pictures Classics acquired its worldwide distribution rights in addition to joining the project as co-financier. Principal photography took place over 15 days on a soundstage in Dublin, Ireland, wrapping by September. Now this film, celebrating the music of another era, is being celebrated as well with star Hawke and director Linklater enjoying various accolades and positive reviews.

The following conversation is an edited version of a discussion that took place after a screening at the Museum of Modern Art as part of their Contenders series.

Q: Have you ever heard the musical “Oklahoma!” on stage?

Ethan: No. My first musical was a little known one called “Annie” that I saw in Atlanta. I went home and immediately wrote a sequel to it called “Arthur.” You remember how she had a little half heart? Well, the truth is, she had a twin brother. He also had red hair, and lived in a boy’s orphanage. He really had the other half.

So what happens at the start of my musical is she’s on the fire escape, and sings, “maybe far away,” but the other boy was like, “or maybe real nearby.” Her parents taught them that song to reunite them. It was the story of their reuniting. It was very sad.

Rick Linklater: It felt like “Oklahoma, as well as all the music of Hammerstein’s, were just there in my whole life. My mom was listening to the cast recordings so the music was there. But I think I saw it somewhere along the way. I saw it numerous times, but it was in schools.

Q: You not only made “Blue Moon” and “Nouvelle Vague,” out this year, you’ve also produced 200 movies, have five in production at least, including a film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and George Forrest’s “Merrily, We Roll Along, “which is coming out in 2040.

Rick Linklater: Five in production? Not that I know of. I think things get listed online, throw out an idea.

Q: Ethan, you have two films in release right now. In addition to “Blue Moon,” you have “Black Phone 2” out, and a multi-episode television series, “The Lowdown.” You’re also executive producer of a podcast series, Fish Priests and you’re making films of your own. 

Ethan Hawke: We do work a lot.

Q: How do you juggle all of these projects?

Rick Linklater: We haven’t worked together in 10 years. We figured out, we have a big gap. But, that’s my answer.

Q: How do these films and projects inform each other?  how do you shift roles, because you’re obviously adept enough to do that. Is it just the way that you’re thinking about certain projects at a specific moment in your world?

Rick Linklater: This had a long gestation. we’ve been on this for like 13 years, we figure, somewhere in there. Also, that’s the same for “Nouvelle Vague,” the French New Wave film. Ethan has made films, documentaries, and narratives about artists. You could put them together. I think you had seven films.

Ethan Hawke: The two of us both like to work. Maybe it’s part of our friendship. We both are restless, and really enjoy it. One of the things I love about Rick is how curious he is, that you could be in love with punk rock and  Rogers and Hart. That you can make a baseball movie and a movie about Jean-Luc Godard. His interests are comprehensive; it’s really one of the most wonderful things about us being friends is how curious you are about all different walks of life. It informs your movies. We both are really restless, I think.

Rick Linklater: Yeah, and we meet without any ideas. Like, it’ll be, “what are you reading? When are you coming? Hey, I read this thing on Tumblr. Yeah.” We’ve just always  been like that. Ethan and I met in 30, what was is, oh, it was 1993, fall of ’93, 32 years ago, whatever. We started talking then, and I  just said, “Yeah, we’ve  been talking ever since.” We’ve made movies along the way, too, a lot. We didn’t even realize it had been 10 years, because not only are we developing this, there’s other things we’re talking about. So, it’s just ongoing.

Ethan Hawke: We just got the script for this while we were finishing “Boyhood.” That’s how long we’ve been talking about this.

Rick Linklater: We’ve been talking about this thing.

Q: One of the films that comes to mind is the collaboration you did on tape, which was an adaptation of a play. I think it was a kind of chamber piece, set in real time, in a motel. it does have a certain kind of affinity for this single location film.

Rick Linklater: Sorry, this is a more fun location than a crummy motel. It’s nice to be here. But, yeah, that was kind of a real time movie in one location. So, I think that informed this. We’ve been talking about that a few times here.

Ethan Hawke: The “Before” Trilogy has an aspect of real time to it as well. There’s a lot. Rick likes to say that if you don’t have a plot, you need to make it very concise.

Rick Linklater: I think that’s a fact. People mentioned it in something else.

Q:  Interestingly, you were not the first to play Larry Hart, Mickey Rooney came before you.

Ethan Hawke: Mickey Rooney and I play a lot of the same parts.

Q: Did you watch the film “Words and Music?” It’s rather a powerful take on their lives [released in 1948].

Ethan Hawke: It’s pretty silly.

Rick Linklater: Yes, that’s an excuse to have it, in 35 mm with some really nice performances. It’s silly, of course.

Q: It’s a heartbreaking story, really. When you read this book about Hart, “A Ship Without A Sail: The Life of Lorenz Hart,” his final months are just absolutely devastating. The question everyone, of course, has been throwing out in the context of this film, is the physicality of this performance and the transformations you have to go through for it.

Rick Linklater: Everybody gives actors a lot of credit when they put on a lot of weight or lose a lot of weight, but no one ever gives them credit for losing a lot of height.

Ethan Hawke: I’m proud of myself about it. The history of cinema has spent a lot of energy making small, diminutive men look large and powerful, and we just had to invert it. But it was his physical appearance that  says a lot about his relationship to himself and to society. It was an important aspect to the character. He’s the smallest person in the room with the biggest personality, and I’d like to think that it almost felt like if he stopped talking nobody would see him, That’s how he felt. We knew it was important, and how to do it was extremely tricky. 

We knew we didn’t want to use computers or anything like that, but that wasn’t the only thing, it’s the dyed hair and the comb-over, he has arthritis, and he’s going to die in a few months. But in truth, those superficial things are only valuable if they’re unlocking his soul in some way. If the movie became about that, it would be to his detriment. We were trying to look for things that would unlock him, and unlock me as an actor, to become somebody else.

Rick Linklater: I had a front row seat for that unlocking, and when you were five feet tall looking up at everybody, you’d be like, “Holy shit, it’s a whole different world.”

Ethan Hawke: None of my attempts to flirt with Margaret Qualley went over with anything but a ridiculous nickel.

Rick Linklater: Technically, it was a real pain in the ass, of course, but the actor who played Oscar [Hammerstein], who’s notoriously a tall guy, was probably, Ethan’s around six feet tall, that guy was like five nine. Elevating him – but he was perfect for Oscar – so we would have him up on some boxes, and Ethan kind of lower, and everybody trying not to fall in, trickle in.

Q: It was a good capture. It was said that Larry Hart didn’t even think he was capable of seducing his own shadow, which is beautiful and heartbreaking.

Rick Linklater: That was a big leap for Ethan to be able to get to that headspace. No, never, never has anyone ever wanted to do it that way.

Ethan Hawke: But the thing is, all that’s funny, but the truth is, from the get-go, this is a screenplay that I spent, whatever, 40 years of acting. On the one hand, I can count the amount of screenplays that knocked me back so much that I was like, have to do this. The quality of the writing, learning the lines was fun, because I would sit there and giggle and be moved. Every turn of phrase was fascinating and so well-built.

The way it really does function, the whole movie, and we came to this pretty early in the process. Years ago, when we first started reading it out loud, we said, the whole movie needs to feel like a 90-minute Rodgers and Hark song. It’s got to float, and it’s got to have a bridge, and it’s got to have dissonance and resolve, and have that same wit and the same soulfulness that they carry. And if we could do that, then we felt like we could sustain the audience’s attention with this period. The target of this movie is so small. It’s such a fragile film, and Robert’s writing is so exceptional. It would be impossible without it. 

And so, Seven Minutes in Heaven in the Coat Room is one thing, but when the quality of writing is so high, it makes it thrilling for us. And then our job became about how to make sure we believed it, and how to make the song take off.

Q: When you’re playing real-life figures, are there ground rules for what you feel comfortable doing or not doing? I’m not talking about historical figures like Marco Polo in this case, or Jesus, or Joan of Arc. I’m talking about people in recent memory. Do you feel, do you do copious amounts of research? Do you try to emulate the mannerisms, the hand, the famous hand rubbing that Larry Hart would do in the kind of nervousness?

Ethan Hawke: Well, you say famous, but most people haven’t heard of Larry Hart. We start off

Rick Linklater: Even going to the height of people’s heads. No one’s going to, first off, no one even knows who Larry Hart is, much less how tall he is. Like ,it matters to us. It matters to that character. So we try to be as exact as possible.. There’s footage of him.  They shot a lot of little short bits, kind of promotional bits with Rogers. So you can see him kind of walking around.

Ethan Hawke: He’s kind of an awkward guy at his height.

Rick Linklater: Yeah, a lot of photos, he’s a pretty handsome guy. He would always position himself kind of up, and Rogers would be sitting. But you see him walking around. It’s like, he isn’t awkward. He’s awkward in his body, for sure.

Ethan Hawke: I felt a sense of relief that I had all the benefits of these specific details about the real man to draw from, create dynamics in the movie, without the albatross of, if you play Johnny Cash or Muhammad Ali, or, some of these more famous figures where the audience has a huge backlog of expectations about what the person looks and sounds like. I didn’t have to deal with that, so I could choose what would help me in this performance, and help Robert’s writing, and help Rick.

Q: You’re more inclined to be John Brown or Nikolai Tesla or Larry Hart than taking on Muhammad Ali anytime soon, but you never know.

Ethan Hawke: It frees you up as an actor. It’s more exciting. if you were to play JFK or something like that, everybody has such awareness of how he moved and looked, and you start having to do an imitation, and then that would scare me.

Q: One of the things that is very poignant about this film is that it marks the passing of a moment in New York life. It is very moving to see Sardis, for example, a place that doesn’t exist like that anymore.

Ethan Hawke: It still exists. It’s funny you say that, because Bobbie, Kim, Bobbie and I, we shot a little Sardis in Ireland, and Bobbie and I were like, “before we get in the plane, let’s go to Sardis. Let’s break bread in Sardis and just try to bring New York with us.” And we sat down there, and there was Patti LuPone sitting there, having a martini and talking, and all this different theater. It’s different. Broadway is so different. Broadway used to be the absolute fulcrum of the entertainment world. Everything started here. The power of it has been diminished, and the romance of it has been diminished, but there’s still the likes of Broadway showing up.

Rick Linklater: I feel the ghost there. I’ve been doing old theaters. They’re still here.

Q: So many of your films, though, are about these kinds of inflection points in history, whether it’s the life of an adolescent, or it’s the life of a city.

Rick Linklater: This kind of works on a couple levels, I think. In Broadway history it’s kind of a before and after moment, in musical theater history. But, I always thought, well, gosh, it’s just the end of an era. But it’s really from Larry’s perspective, like, the way it’s moving on without him, that was so poignant. I always thought this thing was like this sad little howl into the night from the artist who’s being left behind. specifically by his partner, who’s moved on, but the times, too, even more, kind of crushingly, at his taste and what he’s about is kind of becoming a thing of the past. So I don’t think any artists kind of think of what they do as having an expiration day or taste changing, but it does. It evolves, particularly in music where you can just, it’s just the idea that something was ending and he was aware enough to feel it.

Q: With “Nouvelle Vague,” it’s obviously a turning point in filmmaking. And so, the young Turks of the Cahiers thumbed their noses at the ’40s and ’50s generation of French filmmakers. there is a tense sense of a passing of the baton, in a way.

Rick Linklater: With that one, it’s kind of out with the old in a good way, for sure. It’s like independent-spirited movies and you need these new ways. You need kind of punk rock moments where things get reinvigorated. In musical theater, it changes, but people still argue, is that good? You know “Oklahoma.” Even in films, when “Sound of Music” came out, Hitchcock famously said, “Oh, shit, this thing moves movies back about 20 years,” when that became a huge hit.

Q: Richard Rodgers is not a villain by any stretch. He was driven up the wall by Larry. He did everything he could to encourage Larry to work on “Oklahoma,” to say nothing of “Connecticut Yankee.” But the performance is also really moving, because you get the sense of [not only that] he’s driven up the wall, but at the same time, he knows that Larry’s days are numbered.

Rick Linklater: I think that’s what’s heartbreaking about it, that he’s not coming, he’s done everything. He’s probably hung on another 10 years past and was getting exasperated with Larry’s drinking behavior. But it is heartbreaking to see that coming to him, really just because of Larry’s problems. I told Andrew, “It’s like, don’t worry, I’m Rodgers. I’ve had a couple of people who just have problems, and you have to do it for the team.”

It’s painful to be in that position. You can see it on his face. There’s love there. There’s a triumph over the relationship. There’s all that respect for his talent. It’s sad to see it coming to an end. Not really even for artistic reasons, but just personal reasons like that. But that’s how life is. People have problems, and they can’t outrun their demons quite often.

Q: Given how long this project was gestating, did you talk to someone about it? Did you talk to someone about that?

Rick Linklater: I just missed it. There’s another just brief quote from him in this book, he was often calling Hart sloppy in the way he wrote the lyrics and the way they landed on the music. And it’s hard to imagine only somebody like Sondheim could even perceive such a thing.

Q: It’s unimaginable.

Rick: His loyalty is so clearly Oscar talent. When you talk about Rodgers to people anywhere near a music theater, it’s like, okay, Hart or Hammerstein. And everyone says Hart, except one person. Because he’s like his uncle, like his dad. He just had to carry the torch for him.

Q: He did say one thing. He said, Hammerstein pointed out something to me, which at the tender age of 14, I didn’t fully comprehend, which is that Larry Hart freed American lyrics from the stilted Middle European operetta technique into a natural form of speech. And you can really appreciate the-

Rick Linklater: we’ll paraphrase that in the movie,

Q: Yeah, the absolute connection between Hart’s songwriting, his lyrics and Sondheim’s.

Rick Linklater: Oh, absolutely. It’s fun too.The greatest lyricist ever from having been in a conversation just for a bit. And that is something, that’s the kind of leap we would take, like Robert took with the screenplay. It’s like young Sondheim didn’t say that, old Sondheim said that. But he said it. it’s just kind of funny to have that throw that in Larry’s face.

Q:  How conscious were you of marrying certain kinds of implicit lyrics to the action on the scenes? Or,  even just the way that they are, even your delivery of lines, which is so rapid-fire and so unceasing, how do you marry the dialogue to kind of the sensuousness of the music at the time?

Rick Linklater: That was so fun to have a piano, just a happy soundtrack going. to work it where he mentions Gershwin, or he’ll say a line, and then the piano can kick in something that’s related, or he starts playing from Casablanca, and he realizes, so that was so fun. I just picked all my favorite songs that could possibly be played on the piano that night. It’s obviously not just Gershwin’s part. It’s everything.

Q: It’s everything you perform while you’re delivering lines.Sometimes.

Rick Linklater: A lot of it. But one of those grand moments, my friend, also a composer, he played. We went to the studio, he did over 100 songs. So, and then you can kind of sprinkle them throughout. But that was so fun to work in, to get a soundtrack.

Ethan Hawke: The whole movie is 90-minute raptures in our song. That’s what we’re trying to do. I was, , the filmmaking is kind of Rogers applying the structure, skeleton, and musculature of the movie, and my job was to sprinkle these lyrics on top. I think that’s a brilliant job.

As A Troubled Therapist Dealing with Increasing Trauma, Actor Rose Byrne Gives a Career-Elevating Performance, Gaining Oscar Nomination

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Friday, 13 March 2026 14:18

Written by Brad Balfour

In "If I had Legs, I'd Kick You," Australian actor Rose Byrne's presence is extraordinary. The 46-year-old possesses energy that drives a performance traversing between the real and the surreal, full of physicality and emotion. This career-defining role has been garnering her praise, awards and Oscar nomination talk.

The film had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival in January, 2025. At the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, Byrne won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance. Later in the year, she won the Best Actress award at the 58th Sitges Film Festival for the same role. Most recently she garnedered a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

It received a domestic release by A24 in October and got positive reviews. Byrne's performance received universal acclaim and nominations for a Golden Globe Award and Critics' Choice Award for Best Actress.

Written and directed by Mary Bronstein, the film stars Byrne, Conan O'Brien, Danielle Macdonald, Christian Slater and A$AP Rocky. Byrne, as Linda, plays a therapist stretched to her limits while caring for her daughter, who is suffering from a pediatric disorder. The daughter must be fed through a PEG tube each night, and her demands add to Linda's immense stress. 

Renowned for her versatility across film and television, Byrne has been recognized for her leading roles in blockbuster comedies, independent dramas, and horror films. Her previous accolades include two AACTA Awards, a Silver Bear and a Volpi Cup, in addition to nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards.

Byrne's performance as this troubled mother has again put a spotlight on her. She spoke at a recent screening where, answering questions from a moderator, she offered insight into the challenges she grappled with in playing such a complex part.  

Q: You spent a lot of time with director Mary Bronstein before the shoot to discuss the screenplay, explore the character, and rehearse. Talk about that process.

Rose Byrne: Absolutely. Mary and I had a period of about five weeks where I went to her apartment in Chelsea. I'd dropped my kids off at school or camp. It was over the holidays [so] we worked three days a week, and sat at her kitchen table. We went through the script from page one, word one, and would talk, go off topic, and share our own horror stories. The story of Linda, or the experience she's going through, is based on something Mary Bronstein went through in her life. 

Obviously, she doesn't act like Linda, but it's an expression of something she's spoken about quite openly, so it was like comparing her to a play. It was very rare. We shot the film in 27 days, so it was quick with some ambitious sequences in the film. Everything is practical. There's a tiny bit of CGI on her stomach, but that's it. Everything else, [including] the hamster.

Q: I don't remember the hamster.

Rose Byrne: Well, the hamster in the screenplay is described as [being like] Jack Nicholson from "The Shining." It's much stricter than that. When I read that bit, I was like, “Oh, that's fabulous.” I was laughing a lot. The humor you see in the film is very much reflected in what I read. The screenplay was truly the same expression in a way I've never experienced before as an actress, so I was quite blown away when I read it.

Q: This film's very personal to the director.  How did you insert your own interpretation? You have made this film your own, and it's hard to imagine anyone else playing this role.

Rose Byrne: There is, of course, a sense of responsibility, and it’s such a heavy story. It's a personal crisis and this is Mary's story, so it's open back to her. But at a certain point, you have to jump off. Once you're on set, it becomes something else. Mary was very collaborative. It was never, mine, mine, mine. It's ours from day one. It was like, "We're collaborating on this, we have a creative dialogue," and I brought my questions to the table.  

My obsession was, who was this character before we met her? Because there's no information you can remember. Who was she before this crisis? Like, she was a person, and she used not to be a mother or a wife. Who is she? Can we reverse engineer? That's the actor's homework. You don't see that written all over, because it's boring, but you want it to feel lived in. And that's what we talked about a lot, she and I.

Q: You appear in pretty much every single scene; the camera is on you relentlessly. There's nowhere for the character –– and also for you, the actor –– to escape or to hide. What was it like to be so exposed?

Rose Byrne: It was the tensest technical assignment in many ways. It stretched me, technically, in ways I've not experienced before. I did a television show where I put it all together after I had to look at the map box for a long time. I've done some more sophisticated kind of camera work that was the language of the camera, but this was really pushing it to the extremes. And the first day was the hardest, because [that's when] we shot the first scene in the film. That's always stressful anyway. 

You're anxious, you're establishing so much, you get to know everybody. I was working with Mary, the director, who plays Dr. Spring, and the camera just got closer and closer and closer. I could hear it going, “drr, drr, drr, drr, drr, drr” so this shot was like on 35 (indecipherable) and she was like, “mm-hmm, mm-hmm, okay.” I didn't ask again after that. I just … it's my job to figure it out. But it stretched me and changed me, the experience of working like that. Because what they need, and also what they don't need, is more of a question when you're that close. So it was a challenge, but it was fun, Yeah.

Q: You and Conan O'Brien have incredible chemistry on screen.

Rose Byrne: I'm a bad therapist right there.

Q: You both bring sharp comedic instincts to this film. What’s really fascinating is that there’s nothing inherently funny about those therapy sessions, or even the conversations where your character shares some of her darkest thoughts during therapy.Shetalks about how she got rid of the wrong child, and she's not supposed to be a mother. Talk about juxtaposing comedy with the darkest and most painful human experiences?

Rose Byrne: It's a great question. That’s something I'm interested in in life. I think there’s always a tragic balance every day, waking up and being a person. This film rides a tightrope of that, the whole way, of too much … of the trap of something that is one note. It's just a hysterical woman and there's no nuance. 

The other way [to see it] is that it's too comical, that it has no weight and is silly. It was the fine tightrope we were trying [to walk] --  the tone that Mary had written and was trying to go for in the scenes. And obviously Conan is a national treasure, and so funny. But he was very strict about it. He was very much playing somebody entirely the opposite of him, playing this gregarious man who is also a reserved person with a lot of boundaries who was very strict. 

You might really see the relationship between the therapist and the mirror as the love story of the film. It's the bitter end of the relationship, where they just have contempt for one another, and they're both misbehaving. Then when he doesn't actually break up with her, the film ends, but that's the end of it. Ten minutes later she's running into the ocean. She has no guardrails after that, but his intelligence shines through in his performance. He was very nervous too; he tried to get out of doing it.

Q: He's really good.

Rose Byrne: He's an awesome actor. Mary really wanted to think outside the box for the casting, she didn't want to do the more typical, expected casting for the role. At the same time, he shot that before he shot the Spike Lee movie, so I think it was his first or second acting job, yeah.

Q: When you were reading this screenplay, did it occur to you that it was also a comedy and not just a dramatic film about a woman's breakdown?

Rose Byrne: It did occur to me -- I can see the humor. When you're reading the script and when it's revealed that she's a therapist, I thought that can't be true. Then when I go back, she's walking down the hall and is kind of indifferent. I was like, “Oh my.” I thought that was such a joke. 

To me it's such a reveal: you put therapists on this pedestal, and it's such an isolated experience. You have them –– you don't know anything about them –– and then, one of my favorite moments is when they see each other in the little kitchenette. It's so awkward. It's that moment, right, where you're just like, “mm-hmm.” It's that weird, awkward thing when you see someone out of context, but I felt the script throughout. 

Mary describes it well, that the film lives between the worst thing that's ever happened to you in your life, and the worst thing that's happened to you today. It's sort of between those two worlds, because of these grievances that Linda came up with. Whether it's the parking attendant, or the gentleman that isn't fixing her roof, or the hamster, or these grievances day-to-day that become monumental.

Q: There are two women who are suffering in this film, two mothers --you and Danielle Macdonald. She's great in the film, playing your patient, Caroline. She’s also in the middle of a crisis, for similar reasons, but not exactly the same. The film portrays the two characters very differently, giving nuances to depression and mental breakdown. Despite your character's circumstances, she provides her patient with care, and even gives her advice. How did you, Danielle and Mary, discuss the portrayals of these two mothers?

Rose Byrne: That's a great question, Danielle [MacDonald] was brilliant. She actually came into the film later, and had very difficult scenes. She has spoken about this. She spoke to friends who had suffered from postpartum [depression] and were going through that sort of thing. Mary and I also talked to a therapist along with many women who had suffered from postpartum [depression] … women with children with special needs. 

We did research in that world too, but I think how Mary presents it in the film is very interesting. There's also a bit where Linda is looking in the computer about Andrea Yates -- that horrible case of a woman who killed her kids. She's looking at real footage of Andrea. Then shortly after that, Caroline, her patient, leaves the baby and runs off. 

I think when you zoom out, it feels a bit like her patient didn't get the help she needed, because Linda was experiencing burnout, and couldn't really help this woman. Linda's not getting the help she needs, as a mother who's not quite coping, because her therapist isn't giving her the right advice. It seems like these women are being short-changed, and they eventually just become something you click on, like they didn't get the help they needed. 

Why would Andrea Yates just become another item that you click on? And that feels like when Caroline runs away, she's going to become that next article you read about. We never saw her again -- did something horrible happen? So if that makes sense, it feels like there's a thought about the lack of help that women need in these postpartum phases, or a mother in crisis in a situation like that.

Q: There are many scary moments in this film, and the scariest is when the character repeatedly runs toward the waves on the beach. That moment really centers her. Talk about the making of that scene, and also what it meant to you at that moment?

Rose Byrne: The scene was one of the hardest sequences to build; it was an extremely rough ocean at night. The cinematographer went out at one point, and I had to go get him. Then Mary was like, “Did you see that?” She was checking if I'd seen it or not. I'm from Australia, so I have a lot of respect for the ocean. You grow up very young swimming. 87% of the population is on the coast, so basically you learn to swim as soon as you're born. That helped me in a sense. I knew when to say I needed help, but I also knew when I didn't want to go either. I knew how to get in and how to get out. It was really scary, it was rough. I think the scene is actually extraordinary when you see it.

When I saw that sequence put together, it's very moving. It feels to me, again, like she's trying to escape. With the whole film, she's trying to escape. I think she's trying to escape herself, like her biggest demon is her trauma inside. It's that thing inside that we all are trying to escape from. I feel like the ocean literally spits her back out and says “No, you're not going to escape.” I feel that seeing the daughter's face at the end, to me, feels wonderful. And she does finally say, “I'll do better, I promise.” 

Then you end with a child, and a child is hope, you know? You see her face and you haven't seen this face the whole film. That's in the screenplay, that she says you never see the daughter's face. Mary's spoken to this as well, but it's kind of a two-pronged thing that she describes. As soon as you put a child on the screen, your empathy will go with the child, as it should. So she took that away from the audience, just with the mother. And also, I think, Linda can't see the child at that point. She's just become a caretaker. She's not even really a mother anymore. She's not enjoying being … there's no joy there at this point. So it feels like, to me, the film ends with some hope. 

Q: That it feels like it's a hopeful moment, but I don't believe everything can be resolved so easily.

Rose Byrne: It's been so interesting how the film plays … it's kind of a magic trick. I've had some audience members go, was A$AP Rocky real? Was he just in your imagination? Some people think that he's not real, or Danielle's character's not real. I can't lie: it's fascinating. It plays like a horror [film]. At the New York Film Festival, it plays very much like a comedy. People were laughing straight away. It was a very sophisticated crowd. In Toronto, it was more like a college crowd, so it played more like a horror film. It's been fun to see that.

Q: This film will forever be a super highlight in your bio. It has taken you to all different extremes. Did you discover something new in yourself as an actor? And what are the new challenges you want to take in the future?

Rose Byrne: I think it has changed me, creatively. I'm stretched to my limit of everything, and it was a great role in that sense. I don't know if I met all of those challenges in every moment, in every scene, but I certainly gave 1000 percent. Every day after work, I'd be like, “Did I do this?” I was very obsessed with it and found it hard, the separation anxiety from Mary Bronstein after every day. And going through everything in my head. But it has changed me. I'm not sure what I'll do next. With something like this, that’s this extreme, you have to kind of breathe out. I can't anticipate what will be even close to this.