Paul Mescal is one of the biggest young actors working in Hollywood, and he’ll next star in a devastating Shakespeare drama. After breaking out in the 2020 series Normal People, Mescal started to get much bigger film offers, leading to him landing a starring role in 2022’s hit drama Aftersun.

Aftersun is a heartbreaking film known for leaving many viewers in tears. The Charlotte Wells-directed movie tells the story of an 11-year-old girl named Sophie who goes on vacation with her young father, with an older version of Sophie learning more about who her father really was. The film was critically acclaimed, and Mescal was even nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards.

Since then, Mescal has gone on to land other major roles, such as leading the long-awaited Ridley Scott sequel Gladiator II and starring in dramas like All of Us Strangers and The History of Sound. However, Mescal’s next movie might be his most tragic project yet, which is saying a lot.

Be Prepared For Hamnet To Leave You In Tears This Fall

Along with Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal is starring in Hamnet, a new movie from Chloé Zhao that will be released on November 27. Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel of the same name and a screenplay written by O’Farrell and Zhao, the film is a fictional account of William Shakespeare’s real-life son, Hamnet Shakespeare.

Hamnet died in August 1596 at age 11, meaning that the upcoming movie is sure to tell a tragic story. There are a lot of unknowns about the life of Shakespeare’s son, hence why the story relies on historical fiction to tell the story. While the movie does spend a lot of time on how Shakespeare met his wife, it becomes a raw portrait of grief after Hamnet’s death.

Hamnet died around four years before Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, with the playwright shifting from comedies to tragedies not long after his son’s death. The movie is sure to explore the impact that Hamnet’s death had on Shakespeare and his later works, highlighting how he may have dealt with his grief by pouring it into his art.

Based on Mescal’s Aftersun performance and Zhao’s The Rider and Nomadland, Hamnet is sure to be an emotional gut punch. If the film is a successful adaptation of the source material, it is likely that there won’t be a dry eye in the audience. It is one of the most anticipated films at the Toronto International Film Festival, so we will soon hear just how devastating Hamnet is.