TORONTO – Alas, poor Yorick. Andrew Scott might soon be trading your skull for an Oscar.
The acclaimed Irish actor turns in one of his most poignant performances in “Elsinore” (in select theaters Nov. 20, expanding into December). The drama stars Scott as Scottish thespian Ian Charleson, who stepped in for Daniel Day-Lewis in a high-profile 1989 production of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” at London’s National Theatre. His gripping portrayal of Charleson, the gay “Chariots of Fire” actor who was dying of AIDS when tapped to play one of theater’s most famous roles, puts him in strong contention for his first Academy Award nomination.
“Perhaps when you first hear about the story, you might think that it's dark and very serious in tone,” Scott said after
a long standing ovation following the “Elsinore” premiere on Sept. 14 at Toronto International Film Festival.
But Stephen Beresford’s script is full of “enormous levity and fun and humor," Scott added. “It's so incredible to hear people laughing, because Ian was such an extraordinarily funny and life-loving person, and it was so incredible that Stephen was able to interweave this incredible sense of life that he had.”
In the movie, Ian feels that time is running short and he doesn’t want to waste it with underwhelming roles. After he is picked to play “Hamlet” and ready to start rehearsals, lesions and sores begin to appear on his body, including his face. He reaches out for help from Margaret Johnson (Olivia Colman), a London doctor known for extending the life of AIDS patients, but even she disapproves of him taking on such a demanding role in his condition.
“I really understood Ian's desire to play that part at the end of his life,” said Billie Piper, who plays Ian’s close casting-director friend Patsy. “Lots of people thought it was crazy. But it's exactly what I would want to do.”
Scott has played Hamlet on stage, so he knew it was an “absolutely exhausting” role. “It's one of the things we try to convey” about Shakespeare’s play, he said. “It’s four hours long. You do it eight times a week. There's a sword fight in hour three. So the idea that Ian did that is just so heroic to me, that he did that when he was feeling so wretched.”
One of the most difficult aspects of the performance was having to “unlearn my own Hamlet, and to try and imagine what he might have been going through when 'the undiscovered country,’ as they call it, was just right in front of him,” Scott explained, referencing the play's metaphor for death and the afterlife. “I learned it all again and that ain't easy.”
The actor added that director Simon Stone did a sort of “guerrilla filmmaking” with the camera, doing close-ups and moving around frequently in the “Hamlet” rehearsal scenes. “If he wanted me to do any of those eight large soliloquies, I had to have them ready for him,” Scott said.
Beresford remembered that in Scott’s early theater work, he was often compared in reviews to a young Charleson, so it made sense that Scott would play him on screen: “That's such an incredible idea. Why hasn't somebody done it already at least three times?”
Scott feels “such kinship” with Charleson because of “his bravery and decision” to take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity before it was too late.
“As he says (in the movie), ‘I’d rather die of 'Hamlet' than AIDS,’ ” Scott said. Charleson escaped from "the terrible tyranny of the waiting and the hospital rooms and the blood counts” and into “a world where you're working on the greatest play that has ever been written.”
“Hamlet” encompasses all life, Scott concluded. “It’s about ‘To be, or not to be, that is the question.’ Why wouldn't you go and do the thing that you love to do? It doesn't end well for any of us. I'm so grateful that he did it because he inspired just a whole generation of people.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Andrew Scott had to 'unlearn' Hamlet for his emotional 'Elsinore' role
