Shakespearean thespian Ian McKellen brands Hamnet ‘improbable’ fiction: ‘I don’t quite get it’

Hamnet may be about to win big at the Oscars, but Sir Ian McKellen won’t be voting for Chloé Zhao’s weepie to win Best Picture.

The British actor, who became a member of the Academy in 1999 after receiving a nomination for Gods and Monsters, is a Shakespeare enthusiast who has played characters ranging from Hamlet and King Lear to Macbeth and Falstaff.

But he is not a fan of Hamnet, the fictional drama based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel about the death of the Bard’s 11-year-old son in the 1500s. The film imagines how the tragedy might have inspired Hamlet.

For McKellen, 86, this is a stretch too far. “I don’t quite get it,” the thespian said in a new interview. “I’m not very interested in trying to work out where Shakespeare’s imagination came from, but it certainly didn’t just come from family life.”

He predicted the film would win several Oscars when the Academy Awards take place in March, but described details of the plot as “improbable”.

“As Hamnet races towards the finishing line as far as Oscars are concerned, it’s likely to repeat the success of Shakespeare in Love, which had odd views as to how plays get put on,” McKellen continued.

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“But then Shakespeare’s perhaps the most famous person who ever lived, so of course there is some interest in what he looked like, what his relationship with his family was.

“And we can’t know, but the idea Anne Hathaway has never seen a play before? It’s improbable, considering what her husband did for a living. And she doesn’t seem to know what a play is! I think there are a few doubts of probability.”

In the film, Shakespeare’s wife (Jessie Buckley) remains at home in Stratford-Upon-Avon, looking after their children while he travels to London and becomes a successful playwright. The film depicts Hathaway as being clueless about his profession.

While the film is nominated for Best Picture, it faces fierce competition from Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners.

However, lead star Buckley is the favourite to win Best Actress. Hamnet received eight nominations in total, including Best Director for Zhao and Best Adapted Screenplay for Zhao and O’Farrell.

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The film, which also stars Paul Mescal and Jacobi Jupe, has become a box office hit, grossing $74m (£54.3m) from a budget of $35m (£25.6m). The film is expected to extend these takings as awards season intensifies; the Oscars take place on 15 March.