Andrew Scott‘s name is already being thrown around in the Best Actor conversation, and the first official trailer for Elsinore gives that buzz plenty to work with. The biographical drama tells the remarkable true story of Scottish actor Ian Charleson, who took on the role of Hamlet at London’s National Theatre while seriously ill with AIDS. Watch the trailer above and get the details below.

Ian Charleson Has One Thing on His Mind: Hamlet

Directed by Simon Stone (The Dig) from a screenplay by Stephen Beresford (Pride), Elsinore heads to London in 1989, during the final chapter of Charleson’s life.

The trailer initially finds him frustrated with the direction of his career. He had starred as Olympic runner Eric Liddell in 1981’s Best Picture winner Chariots of Fire and appeared in another Best Picture winner, Gandhi, the following year, but the stage remained a major part of his life. Hamlet, in particular, was a role he desperately wanted.

“It’s the greatest part that you can play in the greatest theatre,” Charleson says in the trailer. “And I’m jealous.”

That opportunity arrives when National Theatre director Richard Eyre, played by Johnny Flynn, needs a new Hamlet. Charleson is offered the part, but the timing could hardly be more daunting: his health is rapidly deteriorating as he lives with AIDS.

Olivia Colman plays pioneering HIV specialist Dr Margaret Johnson, who lays out just how punishing the production will be. Hamlet means around 1,500 lines, packed houses and a part that, as she tells him, “goes beyond physical endurance”. When Eyre says he can’t let Charleson risk his health, the response is immediate: “You’re not letting me. I choose to do it.”

Why Elsinore Hit Close to Home for Andrew Scott

Scott brings an unusually personal connection to Elsinore. He played Hamlet around 150 times in Robert Icke’s acclaimed 2017 production, meaning the film required him not simply to return to Shakespeare’s Prince of Denmark, but to put aside his own interpretation and find what the role might have meant to Charleson while facing the end of his life.

“When you’re talking about ‘to be or not to be,’ ‘do I live or do I die’ — Ian is not talking about that as an almost. It was an inevitability at that stage, that he was going to die,” Scott told The Hollywood Reporter. “The idea that Ian was doing this when he was so sick is still, to my mind, just completely mind-blowing. And his decision to do it was just incredibly courageous.”

“I wanted people to be able to understand that he was trying to live — it’s not about fetishizing his death,” Scott said. “He was so full of life and fun, and he did this extraordinary thing.”

Scott’s own history with Hamlet became particularly useful once filming moved into the rehearsal sequences. Stone approached those scenes almost like a documentary, with spontaneous direction passed to Johnny Flynn’s Richard Eyre and then to Scott as Charleson. Scott learned all seven soliloquies so the cameras could keep rolling without the performance being rigidly mapped out beforehand.

“We didn’t want to represent theater as this polite undertaking that you do, where everybody then goes and has a cocktail,” Scott said. “It’s this extraordinary physical thing that sometimes people aren’t aware of, just how Olympian the task is for theater performers.”

The role also carried another connection for Scott as a gay actor. Charleson had worked in an era when being open about his sexuality could have serious professional consequences, while Scott recalled being warned early in his own career that coming out could limit his opportunities. He told the publication that his own experience ultimately proved very different, saying that coming out had a positive effect on his career and that he was moved by how far things had come since Charleson’s era.

Andrew Scott’s Performance Is Getting Serious Awards Attention

Elsinore currently holds an 89% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, with Scott’s performance emerging as one of the biggest talking points from its early festival screenings.

The film also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the International People’s Choice Award, adding to the momentum surrounding Scott’s performance and the film more broadly.

That reception has placed Scott firmly among the names being discussed in the early Best Actor race. There’s plenty of awards season still to play out, but Elsinore has entered the conversation with considerable momentum.

The film has another major festival stop immediately ahead. Elsinore will open the 70th BFI London Film Festival on October 7, with the European premiere taking place just a short distance from the National Theatre where Charleson’s extraordinary final Hamlet unfolded.

Who’s in the Elsinore Cast?

Scott leads an extensive British and Irish ensemble, with Colman as Dr Margaret Johnson and Flynn as Richard Eyre. Billie Piper plays casting director Patsy Pollack, while the cast also includes Luke Thompson, David Dawson, Matthew Beard, Joe Locke, Monica Dolan, Georgie Glen, Sadie Soverall, Adeel Akhtar, Dickie Beau, Kadiff Kirwan, Juliet Stevenson and Peter Mullan.

There’s another particularly meaningful piece of casting in David Rintoul, one of Charleson’s close friends, who appears as the Ghost in the film’s recreation of Hamlet. Rintoul also performed alongside Scott in his 2017 production of the Shakespeare play. Scott serves as a producer on Elsinore as well as starring.

When Is Elsinore Released?

Focus Features will begin the U.S. theatrical release of Elsinore on November 20, 2026, before expanding the film through Thanksgiving and into December.

Australian audiences will get the film in cinemas on January 28, 2027, with STUDIOCANAL handling the local release. UK cinemas will follow on January 29, 2027.

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