00:00Ready for Ooze and Egg are reacting with another hamnet.
00:04Designing Chloe's Zanation.
00:07I don't know.
00:10I don't want a hamnet, though.
00:12I love to do focus. Yeah, I do focus.
00:15Where we take you behind the scenes and on location of our upcoming films.
00:20Today we're off on a Shakespearean road trip inspired by Chloe Zhao's hamnet.
00:26I can't avoid waiting.
00:34No, you didn't hear.
00:36Tell me a story.
00:38What story would you like?
00:39Something that lives here.
00:41Set at the crossroads of history and fiction,
00:44Hamnet tells the impowerful story of William Shakespeare and his wife Van Yes,
00:48as they fall in love and raise a family in the English countryside.
00:52But their idyllic life takes a turn when the unexpected loss of their son, Hamnet,
00:57inspires the creation of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies.
01:02Based on Maggie O'Farrell's award-winning novel, Hamnet,
01:05and adapted for the screen by O'Farrell and Academy Award-winning director Chloe Zhao,
01:10this moving drama stars a show-stopping cast led by Jesse Buckley and Paul Meskell.
01:18William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, Anne Yes, in the film,
01:21were born and buried here in their hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon.
01:28As you can see, their Tudor-style houses are still standing,
01:31and are now popular tourist attractions.
01:34But for Hamnet, the filmmakers felt that Stratford was too modernised for their 16th century setting,
01:40sending them on a country-wide locations scout.
01:43So, let's hit the road.
01:44Who are you looking for?
01:46William Shakespeare.
01:50According to the location's team, director Chloe Zhao wasn't only after a picturesque backdrop,
01:56she wanted to find a place with real spirit.
01:59And when the team brought her here to the village of Webley,
02:02she knew she had found the one.
02:05Just 90 minutes west of Stratford, Webley streams align with striking black-and-white,
02:10temper-framed houses, the signature architecture of Shakespeare's day.
02:14With an incredible canvas already in place,
02:17production designer Fiona Crombie and her team built additional facades,
02:21dressed and painted existing storefronts, and covered the roads in dirt,
02:26recreating Henley Street as it might have looked over 400 years ago.
02:38When it came to finding a home for Hulins and Yesa's family farm,
02:42the filmmakers discovered their ideal match just a few miles outside Webley,
02:47Cooley Farmhouse.
02:49Built in the early 1600s, this Grade II listed timber-framed house
02:54is carefully preserved by the National Trust.
03:02With its weathered beams, stone-tiled roof and surrounding barns,
03:07Cooley offers an authentic glimpse into rural Elizabethan life,
03:12the romantic backdrop for Will and Yesa's faithful meeting.
03:16Welcome to Cumi. Do come in.
03:18Lucy, what was your experience like working with the team from Hamlet?
03:22It was fascinating, watching Paul Mescal lean through the window
03:25as he spots Jesse Lockwood for the first time.
03:29I know that's going to be a really key moment,
03:30and to know that I was literally out of view just as that was happening,
03:34that's going to be pretty special.
03:35I'm quite proud.
03:38There have never been so many people one-site in a tiny little place like this.
03:44It was wonderful to see how thoughtful and careful they were to this place.
03:49Director Kojo was so careful about the props they brought in,
03:53the way they dressed the set, everything they did,
03:55and took what was already here.
03:58I think that will absolutely shine through the film.
04:00It's not strictly Tudor style.
04:04It's Jacobean, so it's early 1600s.
04:11Timber framing, stone bases,
04:14blind plaster,
04:16massive fireplaces.
04:18We did live very difficult back then.
04:21When we lived,
04:21it was in the field coming to farm you,
04:24but at that time,
04:25it's the kind of house you dream of.
04:30You told me, oh, what did you see?
04:32I saw a landscape.
04:35Despite the abundance of historical homes scattered throughout England,
04:39it became clear that in order to fully realise Chloe's vision,
04:43some of the sets needed to be built from scratch,
04:45including the ethereas of Shakespeare's Henley Street House.
04:49The husband,
04:50he was the boy,
04:51actually,
04:53the master of him.
04:54He took his first breath,
04:56better by the window.
04:57Fiona Crotty and her team scouted dozens of period buildings,
05:02selecting their favourite details
05:03and assembling them into a seamless set.
05:06This level of craft did not go unnoticed
05:09by stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Meskel.
05:12I think it always helps to begin a film,
05:14a relationship to the period
05:16in a place that feels period authentic.
05:18Yeah.
05:19He could smell the world that she created.
05:21The leather that she had was there.
05:23The stones that she made.
05:25The ground floor was entirely built.
05:27It smelled like Elizabethan wet floor that had been flooded.
05:32The minute you stepped into that house,
05:34there was no, like,
05:35oh, I'm stepping onto a set now.
05:37It was a real living place.
05:41I've lost my way.
05:43Please go to London.
05:45Why London?
05:46Because London is where the whole world down was.
05:48As Will's playwriting career took him to London,
05:51the filmmakers saw the sharp contrast
05:52between the domestic countryside
05:54and the bustling city.
05:56While many of these scenes were shot on constructed sets,
05:59one practical location helped to illustrate London's gritty texture.
06:02The charter house, located in the heart of London,
06:06feels like a hidden medieval enclave.
06:09With cloisters, courtyards and gardens
06:12that have survived centuries of London's turbulent history.
06:21Once an emergency burial ground for victims of the Black Death in 1348,
06:26this site later became a monastery and then a Tudor mansion.
06:29In fact, Elizabeth I used the charter house
06:32during preparations for her 1558 coronation,
06:35just two years after Angus' birth.
06:39What do you wish to do now?
06:41I should be in the theatre.
06:44At the theatre.
06:46Working with your father.
06:49Of course, we can't talk about William Shakespeare
06:52without mentioning the world-famous Globe Theatre.
06:55Although the original theatre burned down in 1613
06:58and its successor was demolished in 1644,
07:01this replica has been opened since 1997
07:04and stages productions year-round.
07:09Due to the theatre's cracked calendar,
07:11the production designers opted to build their own replica
07:14for the film's moving climax,
07:16which depicts the very first performance of Hamlet.
07:20Everyone in town is talking about it.
07:22Did you not wonder what I said it?
07:24With extensive research, the team recreated the theatre
07:28with striking accuracy, even borrowing props
07:31and set dressing from the real Globe.
07:34But for Chloe Zhao and her actors,
07:35perhaps the most notable design choice
07:37was the hand-painted backdrop.
07:39What Chloe ran with in terms of like the backdrop of the world.
07:43Oh my God, that made me cry yesterday.
07:45When he's like...
07:46Oh, it really...
07:47It really moved me this like tapestry off of the woods
07:51where they first fell along.
07:53It like elevates this giant globe to something so personal again.
07:59It's like the globe isn't there to kind of be performatively impressive.
08:02So this thing was built for those two characters.
08:07I like the globe only, but piano is capacity to translate Chloe's vision.
08:13There is perhaps no writer more famous in the English language
08:17than William Shakespeare,
08:18but in Hamlet, this larger-than-life figure
08:21has been brought down to human size
08:23in an incredible story that is equally, if not more so,
08:26about his beloved Agnes.
08:28Their romance and the tragedy they endure
08:31inspired countless works of art
08:33that would withstand the test of time.
08:36This enduring legacy continues to draw visitors
08:38to the places where Shakespeare lived and worked,
08:41but if you're seeking an untold chapter of his story,
08:44don't miss Hamlet.
08:45Only in theatres.
08:47I'm so dead.
08:49It'll be hard open.
08:54What do you see?
08:57You will live.
09:01I'm Alicia Malone, and I'll see you on the next Real Destination.
09:06Alright, that was the end of Hamlet.
09:10Building for full reasons.
09:12Alright, thank you, Uzi.
09:14Thank you, Nicholas Cage.
09:16coming soon.
09:16Advantage.
09:16Bye.
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