If you're a Shakespeare purist, brace yourself-- there's a new Hamlet coming, and with Catherine Hardwicke directing and Emile Hirsch starring in the title role, it promises to be an even grittier, bloodier, funkier affair than the 2000 Ethan Hawke version. At today's junket for his new film, Taking Woodstock, Hirsch described some of his and Hardwicke's plan for the classic Shakespeare play, including the fact that they won't just have a college-aged actor playing Hamlet, but the movie will be set at college itself. He didn't have many details on the film aside from what we already knew-- "We want to make this one more of a thriller, with more of a horror aspect to it"-- but from what I can tell, the college setting is new. Does this mean that Hirsch's Hamlet will be some kind of prince of the school, where his dad is the dean and his uncle has taken the office? Or, more likely, will all the prince's soliloquies and speeches happen away from his family, while Claudius prays for forgiveness back at home and Gertrude tries to console her son via Skype?
Hirsch had a lot to say about his inspiration for taking the film, though, a project that he started thanks to a conversation he had with Taking Woodstock co-star Liev Schreiber on that film's set. Schreiber, who played Hamlet onstage in New York in 2000, recommended Hirsch take a look at the Shakespeare play for the first time. "I had read the play after Liev recommended it ,and I had never seen or read it. I just loved it."
But Hirsch, presumably familiar with Ethan Hawke and Kenneth Branagh's older versions of Hamlet, had to check the facts before pitching a film with himself in the lead. "I remember Googling "how old is Hamlet," in this really paranoid way. Like, can I play this thing? It's always these guys in their 40s [in film versions]. But it was this huge internet debate. "Hamlet should be 20," one geek says. Then another geek says "No he shouldn't. 35!" and it just goes back and forth forever. And I was like, this is perfect.When I read the play, it was so appropriate that he would be a guy in his very early 20s. The young angst of that time in your life seemed very appropriate to me."
Hirsch said they're hoping to start production on the film in the fall, but didn't seem to know who would play Ophelia. In a week or two we'll have more from Emile Hirsch on Taking Woodstock, his musical influences, and why he'd want to be a hippie who can fly. Yeah, this is an interview you want to catch.
