On the surface, Danish director and writer Elvira Lind’s King Hamlet, directed by Sam Gold’s 2017 theatrical version, may be the story of then-lover and now-husband Oscar Isaac as he prepares to play Shakespeare’s most famous character. But it would be a mistake to think of this film as process-oriented; Lind was more interested in weaving a rare, intimate look at the relationship between two creative partners who happen to support each other through an almost overwhelmingly intense part of their lives.
The documentary, which premiered in Telluride late last year, arrived in Lind’s native Denmark this week for its international premiere at Copenhagen’s documentary festival CPH:DOX. When she opens the door to Variety’s apartment in Denmark’s capital, her first priority is finishing buttering a small piece of toast for her two young sons. One of them was growing inside her stomach during the filming of the documentary. The filmmaker says it felt “a little surreal” to screen the project with her now alert and alert nine-year-old.
“It’s all about the ephemeral nature of it,” Isaac added. “The moment I woke up, it was over. I really felt this shock yesterday.” Young Gene, who attended the film’s CPH:DOX premiere with Lind’s friends and family, was “smiling the entire time,” the actor says. “When I was kissing[on screen]when I was a baby, he looked up at me and kissed me. He was just there having a good time. He was really proud. It’s crazy that something like this exists, right?”
In an essay he wrote for Talkhouse in 2022, Lind said he felt nauseous while filming Isaac’s initial preparation for the role of the Prince of Denmark at New York’s Public Theater. The positive pregnancy test came around the same time that the actor’s mother was diagnosed with a severe terminal illness. The intensity of this dance between tragedy and euphoria took over their lives on and off stage, sparking the director’s desire to capture how they “approach the world” through it all.
In one of the film’s most emotional moments, the couple have a last-minute wedding on a rooftop at sunset, with only the couple, three friends and their dog in attendance. In another photo, Isaac returns home after saying goodbye to his mother in Florida and lies peacefully in Lind’s bed, with Lind’s hand gently resting on her swollen belly.
Elvira Lind and Oscar Isaac
George Chinshi (Variety)
“We shot a lot and it was very personal, so we really needed a lens to be able to look back at something that took a while to resolve. It was a very raw experience, and it’s both beautiful and sad, so a lot of things happened that felt really overwhelming,” Lind says, to which Isaac replies: Her life wasn’t meant to be photographing people doing things like this. It was nice to have some enlightened perspective and not get too emotionally attached to certain things. ”
One of the great strengths of Lind’s moving documentary is that it quickly and effectively dispels any cynical suspicions about Lind’s motives as it shows viewers the most private moments of her life with Isaac. As celebrity documentaries navigate an increasingly saturated media landscape, audiences are beginning to tire of the fact that films marketed as special insights into celebrities’ lives are often just prestige promotions, carefully and meticulously packaged to cement an already innocent public persona or promote much-needed relief.
King Hamlet is neither, but the Danish director focuses on capturing a slice of life at a particular moment of complicity. For a few seconds, it’s easy to forget you’re watching the same protagonists behind blockbusters from the past decade, including Denis Villeneuve’s Dune and multiple Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. Did Lind find this level of access dangerous?
“It was a very free and playful project,” she says. “When we started filming, it was like, let’s see what happens. Then life actually happened and came into the film in ways we didn’t expect. Whenever you try to control an image, even if it’s something you share online, It feels like a risk. Oscar and I have always been very private, so this definitely felt like a big leap. But this was…I can’t really explain it, but it was about sharing our lives for the sake of sharing our lives.”
Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as Creature in “Frankenstein.”
Provided by Ken Woroner/Netflix
Isaac quickly interceded, insisting that the film was never intended for “promotional purposes.” “Part of the implicit contract in doing this was that this might never see the light of day,” he continues. “That’s kind of the baseline. Sure, you can film something like this, but you can’t guarantee it, and you don’t want it to be shared with the public, especially when you’re shooting down with your mom in Florida. I think that kept me relaxed. There was no sense that this was being made for public consumption.”
A few years ago, with Isaac’s permission, Lind decided to watch the footage again. At first she approached it from a more abstract point of view, piecing together short fragments in black and white. “It put me at ease. It was very smart because it allowed me to distance myself a little bit more,” Isaac recalls.
“At the end of the day, it feels like people are coming together to do something,” he continues. “I think it also gives the sense that this isn’t some vanity project or trying to put together a curated piece of work that’s an accurate representation of Oscar as a person. It’s a moment where this group of people and the filmmaker’s personal lives all come together.”
Lind emphasizes how “not editing on the fly” is common in her practice. “We never release anything that people don’t feel 100 percent comfortable with. It’s easy to say no because it’s very hard for the brain to look at things in isolation and try to think of how they connect. But when you make it into a movie, and each of these fragile things supports and relies on each other to find meaning and purpose, it suddenly becomes different.”
“It’s pretty much off the record until we edit it,” Isaac added.
Translating that process into himself wasn’t easy at first, the filmmaker says. Troubled by the concept of making a personal film, the director reflected on how he challenged his subjects to the same vulnerability that he fears now. “Before this one, I made a movie called Bobi Gene, and it was a very honest and raw movie. I ask other people to hold their stories as close to their hearts as possible, so I felt like I could be brave too. That way we have a chance to connect with things and feel things.”
But what Lind initially did not expect was that by inviting a stranger into the most intimate moments of his life, he would have the opportunity to repair the most painful consequences of choosing to start a family in a country that was not his own. After a screening of the film in Copenhagen, the director’s friends told her how happy they were to “be at the wedding” and to see her pregnant. “We didn’t get to have baby showers or Lamaze classes or anything like that. We were doing home hospice, then we flew overseas, we got married, and everything was so intense. I felt really left out because I couldn’t share those moments with my family in Denmark. It was such a wild experience.”
“You became an artist because you didn’t want to live a traditional life, right?” Isaac added. “But you can’t have all the fun. Everything just came at once, and there was no ‘this is what a wedding is like, this is what preparing for a baby’ was. We were kids dealing with all this crazy stuff.”
The pair, who co-starred on screen in both Lind’s Oscar-nominated shorts The Letter Room and King Hamlet, are keen to continue expanding their creative partnership under their production banner Mad Gene Media. Lind is currently working on a fiction project that Isaac calls “her big passion.” “We always collaborate,” says the director. “It’s been that way ever since we met. We’re always reading each other and brainstorming. We’re two creative souls, and that will always be a part of our relationship.”
“But we’re not filming a top-secret documentary right now,” she laughs.
King Hamlet is produced by Sarah Stockman and Sofia Sondervan in association with Sontag Pictures, Mad Gene Media, and Tilt Film of the Netherlands.
