Characters in Hamlet He is the courtier sent by Claudius to invite Hamlet to participate in the duel with Laertes. (This character is called "Ostricke" in the Second Quarto.) Osric, as well as Polonius, attempts to engage with Hamlet in the elaborate, witty discourse, fully consistent with Baldassare Castiglione's 1528 work, "The Courtier". This work outlines several courtly rules, specifically advising royal retainers to amuse their masters with inventive language. The Players are a company of actors who arrive at Elsinore Castle. Friends of Hamlet, they had earlier performed in "the city" (presumably Copenhagen), but faced stiff competition from boy performers, so they
Hamlet (1990 film) Branagh or Daniel Day-Lewis would have been preferable to play Hamlet than Gibson, and a later editorial in the same paper would refer to Gibson's performance as "the most unaffected and lucid Hamlet in memory." "Hamlet" currently holds a 76% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus, "It may lack some of the depth and complexity of the play, but Mel Gibson and Franco Zeffirelli make a surprisingly successful team." The movie received two Academy Awards nominations, for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design (Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo). Sir Alan Bates received a BAFTA nomination as Best