Hamnet ft Chloé Zhao

0:15Chris Hewitt:Welcome to the Empire Podcast spoiler special. This is the latest one. I'm Chris Hewitt and it is dedicated to Chloe Zhao's Oscar frontrunner. Certainly in one category. Hamnet, of course, based on the book by Maggie O 'Farrell. This is a fantastic, terrific, very emotional film, folks. And joining me to discuss it are two people who were just sodden messes mere seconds ago. Don't worry, I've toweled them down. They are, of course, Helen O 'Hara. Hello. Our Shakespeare scholar, I would say. You've seen every Shakespeare play? I've seen every Shakespeare play performed live. Original? Yeah, I didn't time travel.

1:02Oh, okay. Yeah.

1:03Chris Hewitt:Well, I doubt your commitment. Wow. I doubt your commitment to the barn. And we're joined by John Nugent, who keeps seeing those plays that go wrong in the West End. Have you ever seen a Shakespeare go wrong, John? How would you know? Oh, my God. I did once see, I think, a version of Macbeth when I was on a school trip. Right. And, you know, there's a scene where it's like all of the kings in a vision. And someone says, Macbeth, on your left. And then they step through a giant portal. And then it's just a massive pratfall. No, it was a... This isn't a very good story because I can't really remember it.

1:48No, it's a terrible story. Are you sure it was Macbeth? I'm not even sure it was in bed. You pounced on me early doors and I completely flummoxed. The podcast goes wrong. I went to see a production when I was in school as well, a school trip. We went to see The Winter's Tale. And there's a moment where a person is pretending to be a statue and we were all smart arses sitting around waiting for the statue to blink. And frustrated entirely because the statue had painted eyes on her eyelids.

2:16Chris Hewitt:Oh, that's clever. And you could not see her blink. And then you missed the entire play. And we missed the entire play because we were just focused. We were like staring fixedly at her eyes. Staring fixedly. We have an interview with Chloe Shaw. We'll get to it in a second. I went on a school trip to see the cinematic version, Kenneth Branagh's cinematic version of Much Ado About Nothing. Banger. I don't know if that's a good film to show a bunch of horny 16-17 year olds. It's such a horny film. I mean, that bus was just a massive, rutting, heaving flesh on the way back. It was like the end of society.

2:50Chris Hewitt:It was absolutely wild. You can't show young Kate Beckinsale and young Keanu Reeves to a group of impressionable 17-year-olds. You don't know where it's going to end. Yeah, yeah. Several babies, I heard.

3:06Anyway, we will talk about the film.

3:11Chris Hewitt:Hamnet and Helen, in fact, being our Shakespeare scholar, stepped forward once more into the breach and Shut up and it's not even a play Hamlet's not a play so therefore I can make any Shakespeare references fine It's fine Actually as they say at the beginning of this film Hamlet and Hamlet are the same Hamlet and Hamlet are the same Hamlet are the same Hamlet are the same Yeah Quote this So anyway Helen as her Shakespeare scholar said out damn spot and Oh boy and said I'll interview Chloe Zhao, Chris, don't you worry about that. And you talked spoilers, didn't you? It's not really a spoilery.

3:51Yeah, it's not really a spoiler interview, but we get into some last action.

3:56Chris Hewitt:I mean, yeah. Well, this should be fun. Why is this in a spoiler special? Anyway, I'm sure it's all fine. Here is Helen talking to Chloe Zhao. Enjoy. Chloe Zhao, welcome to the Empire Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Happy to be here. um and tell me about hamnet this is something that i gather and i was really surprised by this that you were a little bit wary of at first i think did you just hear the sort of shakespeare side of it and think oh i don't know if i want to do that i i heard it was shakespeare but also it was about his wife and then the the loss of their child and i thought i just didn't think i had the life life experience for it but then when i read the book it was about that but also so much more than that yeah it's such a beautiful story i also heard that paul played a role in yeah convincing you to take another look this is a funny story because i only found out on this press tour the truth of what actually happened oh really he's ox-traded this because in my my version of it was that i initially was like i'm not sure about this and then a few hours later i was told that there's an actor named Paul Mescal, who I never heard of, wanted to meet.

5:11And I thought, oh, I don't, yeah, I just had a feeling that I should meet with him. And then during the meeting, I was watching him talking and just thought, this is an interesting synchronicity because I think he will make an interesting young William Shakespeare. So I asked him, I said, have you ever thought about playing young Shakespeare? And he goes, oh my God, are you talking about Hamnet? I'm like, yeah. He's like, you really should read the book. that's my version of the story and then i found out on this price tour paul knew i was gonna be there he also knew they were considering me for a hamlet uh-huh so he act he asked for the meeting oh you're kidding so the synchronicity was also a power of will yeah but i guess like in his defense i guess that goes to how much he loved the book because he'd already read it i think at that point hadn't he yeah it's just like the character he had intentions and he made it happen oh it's good casting then and how about jesse when did she come aboard jesse after paul convinced me to read the book i read the book and i was blown away by the book and i had a tunnel vision i only saw jesse just immediately what was that was that based on on beast or what did you see naren i have now seen beast or wild rose at the time it was um lost daughter oh yeah okay absolutely yeah um but yeah she seems born to it i can't imagine anyone else in the role now it's amazing agreed yeah so so how did it kind of develop from there i mean i'm guessing you had to do a lot of research for this kind of a historical drama not on my end as much as on maggie's end because we it was earlier on an understanding between me and Maggie and the whole cast and crew that this is going to be almost like a fable it's a darker fairy tale because Maggie's book is so immersive and the world, and she's incredible, she's been able to hold this question about Hamnet since she was in school when she first heard about Shakespeare having a son named Hamnet and she's like well there must be a connection and so and she's created a world she's interpreted you know such a rich world and so we are true our loyalties to her book and then um my HODs have done a lot of research but I encourage them to try to listen to the emotional truth of the characters but also listen to the emotional truth of themselves what's their emotional reaction to the material not just to the script but also to the book and trust that they they're able to find this nice balance yeah yeah and get i think it feels like it's got all that texture and all of that you know rough linens and and paper and you know just the the wood even of the house it all kind of comes across and feels really lived in i guess well because nature is a main character in the film so then how do you technically show that he is you you want the audience to feel that nature is going to burst through the screen right because back then in those homes you can smell nature you can see the stains from the flood you can see things growing through the cracks of things we didn't have the ability to separate ourselves, for better or for worse, from nature back then.

8:50So the immersive experience of the characters is that nature, including death, which is much more accessible to them than they are now, which is part of nature, are everywhere. And then how do you give the audience that experience as well? And a big part of that is through the cinematography and the design. The design, the details in the clothes, the details in the wood, the age of the wood, and every single piece of prop was found in old antique stores. There's no making something new, faking it. And then in the makeup and hair, and then also in the sound design, even the instruments of the music, those tiny little things add up to this feeling that we are, something bigger is present than just the human beings.

9:52Yeah. You get that almost from the first shot of Jessie in the forest. You almost can't see her at first. She's just curled up amid the roots, like one of the roots. Yeah. part of the tree yeah and and worked with johnny burn our sound designer like as the camera comes down what are you hearing you know what what is and what is the forest trying to say and it actually shifts from what the heavens sound like to what the underworld sounds like amazing yeah i talked to jesse and paul this weekend and and we were talking about the sort of the i think it maybe ties into that the kind of almost witchiness of this like and i guess that comes back to being very tied to nature i mean i've gone to exhibitions about witchcraft in those days and it literally was people you know burying things in their house bringing things in from outside and sort of making it part of their lives and sort of trying to carry those qualities then with them wasn't it and also like dancing in the forest you know or on a full moon trying to go out there and connect to these like, we have solstice coming up which is really in the Celtic tradition the solstice is the beginning of the new year, the end of this year, not December 30 you know that so people moved our ancestors moved in a different rhythm as ours ours is a bit actually forced out of the natural rhythm, so we're less in touch with the seasons so I prefer celebrating equinoxes and sustas and those holidays because you feel the change of the season we call it seasonal this and that like we feel it anyways and i think the word pagan originally meant of the land or something like that so i would say this idea of like witchiness is it's just a sensitivity and the intuition that we will have when our bodies are connected more yeah to with our head you know when we're more connected to our um feeling functions and intuitions yeah i wanted to talk about that idea then connection because i think that's really important obviously the the link between will and agnes uh that's so strong at the start of the film and then is is so tested by everything that they go through during this film and by his own desires and his own you know priorities and needs that he he sort of develops i guess you've got you've got to strike a really fundamental balance there between creating that connection first of all and then really kind of tearing it apart during the film yeah i think the word connection is big in this film and it's not just about a man and a woman it's about women and her lineage It's about a man and his imagination, his creativity, and it's also about a communal experience when it comes to holding grief together and experiencing.

12:56I think when you, tragedies are so important in our storytelling tradition, not because we want to just look at the tragedies. is because we want to be reminded our capacity to love and to have empathy. Because you only grieve this much when you loved this much, right? And so especially when you're doing it communally, you've realized, and actually I think biologically we're designed to grieve because when we see someone else that we intellectually disagree in every way, grieving, we immediately feel something for them. Whether we like it or not, sometimes we're like, why am I, I don't want to feel for this person, but you do because we're designed this way.

13:56That's how we survive as a species through community. And we haven't been teared apart completely yet because we continue to feel deep empathy and love for each other through our ability to grieve for each other and i think that's why we we said as a storytellers you bring the audiences through this experience together and then you give them a chance to transcend that through catharsis and then hopefully they can look at each other and be reminded of that yeah it i mean it feels like that's exactly the end of the film that's that's that beautiful shot but but also i feel i find it fascinating that so many of the best films this year have dealt with the power of art to say what we cannot so sinners as well or sentimental value and you know it feels like it's a it's a real credo car back against you know large language models and all of this kind of technological nonsense it feels like it's a very important thing to say right now i think we want to be reminded what makes us human you know and storytelling and art and music you know those expressions have been there since the beginning um and

15:19there's a reason why this stuff is taken out when there is a need for control and oppression because these are rituals that we do alone or we do as a community to feel that we're part of something bigger than us and when you feel that way when you feel one with each other you're fearless and if you're not afraid it's hard for you to be controlled or for you to buy things yeah yeah so i think we are feeling this desperation as a collective and that's why i think this year more than some other years we we have stories about that yeah i think so too you mentioned music there and i know that music was really important in finding those last few moments of the film and finding your sort of catharsis.

16:16Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, music. You know, I actually did talk to Ryan Coogler about music, because that's a huge part of Sinners. We were talking about how music is more primal than visuals and arts, because Max Richter, one of the very first things he said to me is that music is not about melodies or things. It's vibrational, first and foremost. It's elemental. And sound and music, it connects us before any other senses because we are vibrating particles from the Big Bang. So we can be vibrated together by a certain frequency. So I think that's, and he also said there's a school of thinking that music came from initially our ancestors literally banning on things at night to keep the predators away.

17:16Oh, wow. So that becomes the first drums. Yeah. And so it's that primal in us. Yeah. So I would say when I was most lost and not sure where the catharsis come from, and it was a piece of music, Max Richter's This Bitter Earth, it's a version of On the Nature of Daylight, vibrated me to the frequency of something bigger than me and then the inspiration pours out because i was able to surrender my own thinking mind and allow the answer to come through yeah so i think i'm sure most artists would tell you music plays a huge whether they're painter or writer music play a huge plays a huge part in their creative process yeah 100 100 and and also and this is another thing that I heard came very late in the day was casting Noah Jupe as your onstage Hamlet after having obviously his little brother Jacobi playing Hamnet.

18:14That seems inspired but you know I can't believe that that wasn't sort of at the forefront of your mind I guess was he not available initially? Well initially I didn't think he would do something like I mean he's sort of. He's a big role um in terms of screen time and i believe he was also on a shoot and we were he was playing jesus so we were we weren't sure when ours at the time so it was never a question you know and and then then when the need presented itself to us and i remember when like his name came up randomly it was like my producing partner was like what about noah it was like you know it's one of those moments it's a pivot me you just feel like thank you whoever's up there yes whatever it takes to make it happen and again i have an incredible producing team are able to on a day day make these huge shifts um every morning we come with new ideas like this uh sometimes a new scene oh wow like that scene the of macbeth the three witches it was very last minute and so the costume you know everything has to be worked out so we quickly jumped into um action and made this happen and it was just the greatest blessing to have him i wanted to ask as well about the kids because they were phenomenal performances but also they put on a little play for jesse that you didn't tell her exactly what was coming no yeah jesse didn't know and so that wasn't in the script initially but i started to feel like things are getting heavy you know and the writing process for me always continue into production because you wanted to see what life inspire you not just what your own vision is and life was been telling all of us like this is really tough and we just felt like how nice would it be if the kids have something have does have agency like that's their own little secret and paul like rehearsed with them as their dad slash shakespeare that gives him something that he feels like because he was playing someone who hasn't been around give him something and then to to have them have that opportunity to show their love for and yes it's really nice to prepare her from to go to the next stage yeah it's a it's a gorgeous little scene but just makes it all the more heartbreaking you monster yeah you want i mean again the reason why you're feeling that grief and that heartbreak is because you've loved yeah deeply yeah absolutely um so how has this all been because i know that you know after nomadland and and eternals that was by the way which myself and one of my podcast co-hosts are leaders of the fan club of the eternals um it was quite i think an overwhelming experience maybe for those two you needed a bit of a time to reset and recharge i made those four films my first four films including internals within 10 years less than 10 years so it was back to back and these films takes a lot out of me and i mean all films do but they they they kind of have like exposures in different ways you know because you're working with people's real lives for many many years and then you're exposed to something as big as internals and yeah but but At the same time, that's what you do in your 30s, isn't it?

22:06It's the summer of your life. You jump into the river before you know how to swim. That's how you learn. Just figure out how to float. Yeah, exactly. So what's next for you? Is it Buffy? That's part of the next adventure. and then I am I have a couple of things that came out of my experience of Hamnet that is pushing me towards the direction that my ears are up you know open I'm listening listening to what the universe is saying yeah there's a couple of things oh fingers crossed I can't wait to see what they are quite frankly but yeah I know that both of your leads were talking about wanting to work with you immediately again I'll work with them today let's just go put up another little thing to surprise Maggie.

22:57I'll work with them. And it's nice. Sometimes I feel like we're like a performance troupe. And if you find your people, you hold on to them. Absolutely. Well, Chloe Zhao, thank you so much for chatting to us. Thank you for having me. And thank you for being in the Eternals support group.

23:16Chris Hewitt:Okay, that was Helen talking to Chloe Zhao about Hamnet and maybe even occasionally straying into the third act of Hamnet. We think? We think. We think we do. Oh my God. I did it a month and a half ago. I don't remember. Anyway, I would argue that this is a fantastic movie. It's brilliantly, brilliantly acted. Wonderfully directed by Chloe Zhao, who I think will probably win Best Director again. Oh, I don't know about that. You don't know about that? No, I think it's a really strong, strong race this year. And I think Paul... Paul Thomas Anderson. Paul Thomas Anderson may well be. Okay. I think he's the guy to be.

23:52I think he's the front runner there. I look I adore this film and when I came out of that London Film Festival screening where I think you were there as well John and we first saw it I was like that to me is a best picture winner but that's a traditional Oscars best picture winner and this is a film by an already Oscar winning director which is based on a very acclaimed literary favorite which is also bonus points about Shakespeare who has given rise to one or two Oscar winners in his own past. And that's what I mean by this is the traditional feeling Oscar frontrunner. And also it's so emotional.

24:32I think this is, I think, the most nakedly emotional of the three Oscar frontrunners, which I think the other two are one battle after another and sinners. This to me is the most emotional of them. And, you know, again, historically the Oscars have gone for that now. I think the Oscar voting body has become cooler. And I think they may well go for one battle after another, or Sinners. I'm not ruling that eye, even though it's a genre movie. But this would be the traditional Oscar choice, and that's all I meant by that.

25:02Chris Hewitt:Okay. The point I was going to say is that the reason I think this is the Oscar frontrunner is because of the last 15 minutes. I think the rest of the film is terrific and well-acted and well-written, but that ending I had heard about the power of the ending before I saw the film and as we are wont to do in our business came into the movie with a slightly cynical alright prove me wrong silent bob the ending can't be that powerful I also knew what the ending broadly speaking was and then I saw it and I was like oh fuck it's incredibly powerful and it really brings it home and Jessie Buckley might as well have finished the movie by clambering onto the stage and being handed a gold Oscar statuette and doing her speech to camera right there that's how the movie should have ended yes well I mean if you want to talk about frontrunners I think she is by far and away the frontrunner in her category which is best actress I don't see anyone else winning that award and I'm okay with that I mean I'm not going to argue with you I love Rose Byrne and if I'd like so I can kick I would kick you that's an astonishing performance as well I think again it's a really strong year but I do think Jesse Buckley is the one to beat right now and we're saying this before the Oscar nominations have even been announced just for the record here we could be completely wrong but that's certainly how it just feels yeah it feels like one of the years where they might as well just not bother with anyone else and I do think and I've talked about this a bit in the review of Hamnet last week and when we just have been talking generally about the review of last year and so on And I think it does share a commonality with Sinners, with sentimental value with a few films last year, which is it's talking about the power of art to say things.

26:53The power of art. The power of art. The power of art. Hey, look, we're talking about a Maggie O 'Farrell novel and she was born in Coleraine. I'm allowed to go Northern Irish here. Starring two Irish people. Starring two Irish people. But I think we're allowed, you know, I think it is about art's ability to say the things that we cannot say to each other or cannot express in the same way to one another. I think the coding of Will Shakespeare in this film and the relationship between them is really, really interesting because it is dysfunctional at times and it's not a perfect marriage. But there is a tie between them and it is in the unspoken stuff.

27:28ironically like he is a smooth guy he's a smooth talking guy and he can talk and he can you know he can flirt with her when he first meets her and he's he tells her a story essentially as part of his kind of seduction or his courtship or however you want to put it um and it's clear that she values that ability in him to to speak and to express himself in that way but he even he can't express this and he can't get through to her and he can't communicate how he feels and how he understands what she feels except by through the play, at least in the story that we were told and obviously all the fun sponge historians have been out there going he actually wrote two plays in between the death of Hamlet and Hamlet and you know this isn't necessarily accurate and it isn't you know Maggie and Farrell very intentionally did not use their surnames and did not specify some of this and did leave herself is she wrote a fictional book based on historical people the movie makes it fairly clear that it's will shakespeare oh yeah absolutely there's no question there's will shakespeare and neither does the book really but it is a fictional book it is not a historical you know reimagining really she is giving herself that room and that grace to do that but i think to get back to what i think is important to me is this idea that art can say something that we can't just say to one another it doesn't matter how much therapy you've had and it doesn't matter how close you are to nature and it doesn't matter how much you love each other.

28:55Sometimes you can't say the thing you need to say except via art. And I think that's one of the powerful things about this film. And it's one of the reasons that it really is something that is best seen in the cinema because that final scene feels different when you see it as part of a collective than if you're just sitting at home watching it on your own on the sofa. I think that's what's so great about both the book and the film is that it's sort of about how people communicate and especially how they communicate in the face of unimaginable grief and horror. You know, the start of the film, you see Shakespeare as this man of words and he's suddenly tongue-tied when he meets this woman.

29:40He's suddenly like, I usually have words for this. I usually have, you know, an incredible vocabulary and I don't know what to do when I'm just suddenly...

29:47Chris Hewitt:Like apparently to a, oh God. What's in a name? I don't know. Fuck knows. Stuff probably. Yeah, and so there's that, you know, the courtship is really beautifully done, I think. And what Chloe Zhao is so good at is like finding actors who can do a lot with their faces. like Paul Mescal and Jesse Buckley are amazing at just the subtlety of micro expressions and really like narrowing in on those faces with her camera and so you know the book is a very like I love the book I read it last year I think so it was very fresh in my mind when I was watching it and that her these performances really capture that sort of internal processes that are happening and then like you say the play at the end is another form of communicating that it's like this is a man who doesn't know how to say things except through his art and it's like his art is channeling his grief which is just like incomprehensible I thought there was there was just something in that moment there was a couple moments in that finale that really really got me there's a moment where he becomes aware that she's in the audience and I was obviously at the front but as he turns around and he has his final scene as the ghost of Hamlet's father.

31:13Chris Hewitt:And he turns around and he's basically saying goodbye to his son. And obviously part of me was thinking, he's got to do this again tomorrow. Probably twice. Twice on Sunday. He's got to do matinees. Jesus Christ. And she's not always going to be there for that emotional kicker. But that was an incredible scene where he turns around and her basically eyes are locked. But you're talking about this communication that people have with art as a way of helping them get through grief. something that helped me an awful lot after the deaths of my parents they should not have gone down that alley I told him anyway

31:51no comment

31:53Chris Hewitt:no comment John so there's that moment when she reaches out to the actor playing Hamlet who is Noah Jupe in real life and she reaches out to him as he's dying. And I just thought, what an extraordinary depiction of people's interaction with art. And literally at that moment, you wouldn't get away without the West End stage these days. But I just thought it was absolutely, it floored me. And just seeing him in that moment recognizing, oh, he doesn't know who she is. He doesn't know what her backstory is. But he sees in that moment, oh, my God, this woman has a need for something and I can give it to her in this moment.

32:37Chris Hewitt:And then obviously everyone else comes piling on top of that. I thought it was absolutely extraordinary and I was just a sodden mess. It was a very late in the day edition. They filmed the scene and they had her realizing, oh, this is how Will feels, but they didn't have that moment of reaching out until really, really late in production. and it was getting the music and then Chloe Zhao saw what she needed to do with it basically How late did they go back and reshoot it? Not a reshoot but I think it was the last day that they were in the Globe but it was certainly not they shot that scene and they still didn't feel like the movie had an ending and then they had to go back and not go back and reshoot as in they'd wrapped and moved on but go back and do another take well like I think apparently you know from all accounts she and Jessie kind of shared a look and were like we don't we don't have it yet there's something else missing.

33:37That's fascinating. It's also just like it's such a good depiction of like the sort of participatory nature of theatre and you know live art you know it's not a million miles away from the experience I felt in the Royal Festival Hall watching the film of just like I could hear people sniffing around me you know and when that last 15 minutes i could everybody was crying it felt like and that's so much more powerful just like you say what watching in a in a in a cinema screen is so much more effective than just watching it on a laptop or on a plane or something and it is sort of semi-accurate to the experience of being in the globe right where where people are shouting people are throwing stuff in Shakespearean London, you know.

34:26Oh, they would have been very interactive. There's heckling, right? It's not a one-way performance. Yeah, I think it was a bit more chaotic in those days than it is now. Don't shout and heckle at the globe nowadays, please. And they also don't, so they built their own so they could have a slightly smaller and more intimate globe because the real one felt a bit too big and ornate. so it's about 70 % scale version of the globe that stands today and you also can't usually lean on the stage, there are some ushers who will push you back a little bit The real globe Not obviously the one in the film but yeah, I think just that that is, yeah, the power of art and I think it's important to recognise that something that Agnes recognises very early on, which is that he is a genius and he does, it is a need to do what he does.

35:18I think it's interesting that Will is a little bit maybe neurodivergent coded to me in this movie. I think it's a portrayal of genius as neurodivergence, maybe rather than as an uncomplicated gift. It is something that is a gift and is a talent and is a God-given, whatever you want to call it. But it's also something that makes your life difficult. You know, life would be easier for him if he could. I think he genuinely loves his family. I think there is a big part of him that wants to stay in Stratford with his family. And if he were not a genius, he might have just made gloves and stayed with his family and just worked on being a better husband and father than his father was.

36:02And maybe he would have been very happy that way. But that wasn't what drove him. That wasn't the thing that was in him that he needed to do. and I think the portrayal of Will is really interesting because I don't think he's an uncomplicated hero here. He does leave his family and tragedy strikes while he's away and that is something that he has to reckon with and clearly finds it very difficult to reckon with, I think. But it is also something that he needs in his life and it's, yeah, I don't know. I read him as a little bit neurodivergent, as I say. Open brackets, complimentary, closed brackets.

36:41Chris Hewitt:yeah I mean it's surprising to me how it's not his story how little it is in his story I should say more accurately that's true I think to the book and to the stage adaptation I'm sure it is yeah I'm sure it is but it's interesting how little he's in the film because we always get to see the courtship the structure of the movie is really really interesting we wanted to get your guys thoughts on this so you know we get to spend a lot of time with Will and Agnes and we see their courtship and, you know, it's, I wasn't timing things with a stopwatch, but I'm guessing it's about at least 45 minutes, maybe an hour before Hamnet even appears.

37:23Chris Hewitt:And we don't get a lot of time, I would say, with the kids before Hamnet exits Pursued by a Plague. Pursued by a Plague. Yeah. It's definitely different to the book because the book is sort of non-linear and elliptical And I think it opens with Hamnet discovering his sister is ill. And then it sort of goes back and forth between this sort of the timeline of his death and the timeline of Will and Agnes meeting for the first time. And that is really interesting because that sort of gives it this sense of impending doom. It's this, like, you're always aware that something is about to happen. Tragedy is looming throughout their whole story.