Hamlet - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Hamlet or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Hamlet

[christina]

Although the production went to great lengths to make the exterior of Blenheim Palace look wintry, they were blessed on one day with an actual blizzard. Writer and director Sir Kenneth Branagh scrambled to think of an exterior scene that could be shot quickly to take advantage of the real snow. He selected the scene where the sailors deliver Hamlet's letter to Horatio, since Nicholas Farrell could read his lines off the letter. Branagh pulled Farrell away from his lunch break, and they quickly shot the scene.

[melinda]

Richard Briers (Polonius), Michael Maloney (Laertes) and Nicholas Farrell (Horatio) appeared in the director Kenneth Branagh's previous film A Midwinter's Tale (1995), which concerns an amateur production of "Hamlet". They played Joe Harper, Henry Wakefield and Tom Newman respectively.

[jesse]

Hamlet stabs Polonius five times when Polonius is behind the curtain and Hamlet mistakes him for Claudius.

[janice]

For more than a year, Sir Kenneth Branagh had tried shopping the project around major studios in Hollywood, but no studio was willing to finance a four-hour production, citing skepticism of the commercial viability of a William Shakespeare adaptation to a late twentieth century audience. Also, most studios were aware of the negative reviews and the commercial failure of Branagh's previously-directed movie, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), and some of them would only finance this movie if the content and the budget is cut to half. However, Castle Rock Entertainment agreed to finance the movie and to Branagh's demands (filming in 65mm, complete control over the movie, et cetera) under two conditions: a star-studded cast for the movie, and a 35mm, abridged two and a half hour version of this movie for a wider release.

[kim]

Writer and director Sir Kenneth Branagh offered Gérard Depardieu a small part in the four-hour version of the movie out of gratitude for his active support on the release of his first feature Henry V (1989) in France (not only was he the main distributor of the movie, but also dubbed Branagh's voice in the French version).

[gabriel]

Before the start of principal photography, the entire cast did a complete run through of the play, what writer and director Sir Kenneth Branagh described as a sort of studio performance. This way, as they jumped around the chronology of the text during production, everyone would have a sense of where they were in the overall story.

[liam]

Robin Williams and Billy Crystal were not allowed to be on the set at the same time during filming, for fear they would crack up the cast and crew, and cause major production delays.

[sara]

Hugh Cruttwell was the then-Principal of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, in which Sir Kenneth Branagh studied. Cruttwell was on the set all the time. He came as a request by Branagh to give an objective critique for the performance of each take.

[francisco]

The film marked the only on-screen Shakespearean role for either John Mills (Old Norway) or Richard Attenborough (The English Ambassador).

[gerald]

Writer and director Sir Kenneth Branagh knew early on that he wanted a lot of long takes that moved about the castle interiors. He also wanted to avoid the floating feel of Steadicam shots. So all of floors of the Elsinore sets were carefully reinforced and leveled so that camera dollies could move smoothly over them without the use of tracks.

[russell]

This was the director Kenneth Branagh's first 70mm shot movie. He used it again for Murder on the Orient Express (2017).

[chris]

Cast members Sir Kenneth Branagh, Sir Derek Jacobi, and Gérard Depardieu have played Cyrano de Bergerac. As translated into English by Anthony Burgess, in the speech where Cyrano rattles off a list of possible insults to his nose, he includes "Oh that this too, too solid nose would melt", a parody of the "too, too solid flesh" line from this play. (In the Brian Hooker translation of "Cyrano", which José Ferrer played on-stage and on film, the line is given as "Was this the nose that launched a thousand ships?", a parody of "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships", a line from Christopher Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus".)

[russell]

Kate Winslet (Ophelia) learned on the day that she had to shoot the straitjacket scene that she had just been given the role of Rose in Titanic (1997).

[marc]

This was Charlton Heston's only appearance in a Shakespearean film playing a character other than Mark Antony, whom he played in Julius Caesar (1950), Julius Caesar (1970) and Antony and Cleopatra (1972).

[norma]

The construction of the interiors of the "Elsinore Castle" set (actually Blenheim Palace) cost $2 million. The exteriors are simply the exteriors of the palace and had already been standing since 1784.

[carl]

The wintry exterior scenes were achieved with a combination of real snow and artificial snow made from a detergent solution. There was much debate between production designer Tim Harvey and the groundskeeper of Blenheim Palace as to whether the artificial snow would harm the hedges and other greenery on the palace grounds. Fortunately when the production was finished, the hedges were unharmed.