Michael Maloney is Laertes (British) he played Rosencrantz in Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet (1990). Kate Winslet (British, despite being in Titanic) is Ophelia. Richard Briars (who was in Branagh’s Henry V and Much Ado) is Polonius.īrian Blessed, who can do no wrong, is the ghost of King Hamlet. Julie Christie, a Hollywood veteran ( Doctor Zhivago), is nevertheless an Englishwoman who studied acting in the Royal Central School for Speech and Drama, whose most famous alum happens to be Laurence Olivier. One can tell that Branagh suspected the problem of his own casting, since the principal parts are given to Shakespearean veterans, or at least British actors. I don’t know about you, dear readers, but this rogue doesn’t like to do even the things he likes to do for much over three hours at a time. Normally, Osiric is cut or minimized, since the tedious fact of setting up the duel between Laertes and Hamlet doesn’t seem dramatically necessary and comes in after the three hour mark. Osiric is in this Hamlet because one of the novelties of this adaptation is that Branagh did the full Hamlet. Robin Williams plays the unctuous Osiric with a peculiar, self-satisfied glee that reminds me of Claire Danes’s performance in Romeo + Juliet, although Osiric is, in Robin William’s defence, a comic character. Charlton Heston gives one of the last great performances of his career as Player #1, and it is an impressive set piece (likely written to honor one of the elder actors of Shakespeare’s troupe). It’s not that Jack Lemmon does a bad job, per se. It’s like watching a painting created by artists from different schools (Realist, pointillist, surrealist, cubist), if they don’t quite realize they are from different schools. In the early going of Hamlet, Jack Lemmon (like Washington, one of the finest actors Hollywood has made use of) is not quite in the same movie as the other actors. In the early going of Much Ado About Nothing(1993), Denzel Washington doesn’t quite know what to do. With his Hamlet (1996), the gulf between Kenneth Branagh’s acting and that of his Hollywood peers widens.
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