Ian McKellen Questions Hamnet's "Improbable" Plot – but Predicts Oscars Success

Renowned Shakespearean actor voices doubts over Oscar frontrunner Hamnet

Ian McKellen questions Hamnet's "improbable" plot – but predicts Oscars success

There are few actors working today who are more well-versed in the world of Shakespeare than Sir Ian McKellen – who has played a huge range of the Bard's most iconic characters on stage over the years.But the Lord of the Rings icon has admitted he was not too impressed by Chloé Zhao's awards-contending film Hamnet, which imagines events surrounding the death of the playwright's son and suggests that the tragedy could have inspired Shakespeare to…

Ian McKellen Doesn’t Get ‘Hamnet’: “It’s Improbable!”

Sir Ian McKellen, an Oscar voter, will not be casting his ballot for Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet.” In fact, he was far from impressed by the film, which left him somewhat bewildered.The British actor, a member of the Academy since receiving an Oscar nomination for his work in “Gods and Monsters,” is a well-known Shakespeare expert who has played everyone from Hamlet and King Lear to Macbeth and John Falstaff.Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel about the …