Reviews

I've seen at least a half dozen actors play Hamlet—many highly acclaimed—on screen and on stage. I saw Rory Kinnear's performance as part of National Theatre Live, and on the big screen. In Kinnear's performance, I felt I was seeing the Prince of Denmark for the first time. For the first time, I really understood the character and his motivation—not because I knew the play, but because Kinnear's Hamlet was a real person; he overcame the familiarity and the language to convey the internal life of the prince in an immediate and compelling way. I was engrossed in the character and the play, rather than seeing a Shakespeare classic. It made me a Kinnear fan for life.