{"id":1185989,"date":"2026-01-07T07:59:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T15:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/?p=1185989"},"modified":"2026-01-07T07:59:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T15:59:29","slug":"chloe-zhao-hamnet-things-ive-learned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/chloe-zhao-hamnet-things-ive-learned\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamnet Director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao on Eruptions, Excavations and Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chlo\u00e9 Zhao has worked with actors who\u2019d never acted before \u2014 like Brady Jandreau, the Lakota rodeo star at the center of her 2017 breakthrough, The Rider \u2014 <\/em>and with some of the most acclaimed actors in the world, like Frances McDormand, who won an Oscar for starring in Zhao\u2019s 2020\u2019s Nomadland<\/em>, which also earned Best Picture and Best Director for Zhao. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhao elicits more stunning performances in her latest film, Hamnet<\/em>, which stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal as Agnes and William Shakespeare as they mourn the death of their 11-year-old son. But she\u2019s noticed that some of the least and most experienced actors share a common quality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experienced actors, Zhao says, \u201cknow how to hit the marks. They understand why the camera is looking this way, and they understand the process. Great actors have techniques and they\u2019ve trained, and they can deliver depth in layers, and they can deliver paradoxes and contradictions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut sometimes professional actors have less of an advantage than the non-professional actors, because the non-professional actors have something given to them that may take the most intense method acting to achieve \u2014 which is presence.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhao likes to encourage her actors to live in the present moment and make discoveries during filming, rather than to live, breathe, and sleep to subscribed ideas of their characters. She also wants her collaborators to have the tools to release the emotional weight of the day: She led dance parties<\/a> at the end of each day\u2019s shooting on Hamnet <\/em>to help her actors shake off the intensity of the story. And she\u2019s all in favor of \u201cdifferent modalities that can help us get into our body: dancing, dream work, tantric work and breathing exercises, running marathons, martial arts, yoga, traditional Zen meditation, all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her films, starting with her 2015 debut, Songs My Brothers Taught Me<\/em>, embrace patience, improvisation and naturalism, using elegant metaphors to ask big questions. She isn\u2019t good at small talk, which makes dinner parties a pain: \u201cThat\u2019s why I don\u2019t go to them, because there would just be silence. People\u2019d say, \u2018My God, why\u2019s she talking about something so personal right away?\u2019 I just can\u2019t do it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For our latest Things I\u2019ve Learned as a Moviemaker, Chlo\u00e9 Zhao spoke with us about discovery, letting go of pain, and how directing Marvel\u2019s 2021 Eternals <\/em>was like containing a volcaic eruption. \u2014M.M.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chlo\u00e9 Zhao: Things I’ve Learned as a MovieMaker<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Chlo\u00e9
Chlo\u00e9 Zhao, with <\/em>Hamnet stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, says she tries to help actors stay \u201cin the present moment.\u201d Photo by Agata Grzybowska \/ \u00a9 2025 Focus Features<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

1. <\/strong>When we\u2019re trying to tell a story, or an actor is doing a performance, and when it\u2019s just only coming through us, it feels limited and small. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not doable. But if people want to ask me what I\u2019ve learned, what helped my career, my work, it\u2019s that something bigger must come through me on a daily basis when I\u2019m creating. Something much bigger must be guiding me<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.<\/strong> How does that work? You have to get into your body, get out your head, and wait<\/strong>. We don\u2019t compare ourselves to the great prophets, but we can learn from them. They went into the woods, the forests, the deserts and the caves, and they waited, and they put their bodies through something. They starved. They sat in the waterfalls \u2014 cold water. You know, they put their bodies through extreme things. Your own egoic self dissolves, and then you become a conduit to wait for something bigger to come. That should happen daily on set, otherwise it becomes mine<\/em>, which would be too small. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.<\/strong>I was in Pompeii recently. I\u2019ve been working on a project, discovering an older creative process. Or rather, rediscovering it, and questioning what kinds of ways of creating we have forgotten. And I talked to this woman who\u2019s worked in Pompeii for 20 years, and asked her, what makes a good archeologist? And she said, a good archeologist will come to a site with an idea of what might have happened here, and then, when they start to excavate, one little fragment shows up, and in that very crucial moment, they will let go of their own vision and allow the story to speak through the fragment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every day they come to work, face the unknown\u2026 and allow enough freedom to let the story speak itself through the fragments, moment by moment. They also need to give some order to the chaos. The discovery is half of the work, but without a container to hold the discoveries, then you just have chaos. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chlo\u00e9
Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare in director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s <\/em>Hamnet. Photo by Agata Grzybowska \/ \u00a9 2025 Focus Features<\/em><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

4.<\/strong> I think everyone can be a filmmaker.<\/strong>I believe everyone was born with the creative energy to tell stories. Some of us feel the need to do it more than others out of survival, because some of us, for various reasons, grew up in situations where we didn\u2019t know other ways to express ourselves, to connect with people. There are these unicorns, exceptions, but I would say the majority of my fellow directors, writer-directors, who I know, all share that. Like Shakespeare In Hamnet<\/em>, it is survival. We had to create. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

5.<\/strong> You do not need to hold on to your pain.<\/strong>You do not need to hold on to your trauma and your pain to create. If anything, it hinders your sensitivity and ability to stay open and receive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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