Twelve-year-old Jacobi Jupe, who plays the title role in “Hamnet,” broke down in tears during the Variety interview at the Toronto International Film Festival, describing the devastation of embodying William Shakespeare’s ill-fated son, and calling the experience “life-changing.”

“It was so utterly devastating,” Jupe says, pausing as he grew emotional. “When I ended that shoot, there was one thing that I wanted to do, and it was probably to live on for Hamnet because I don’t think it was fair on him.”

As he struggled to continue, Jupe was consoled by his on-screen parents, Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, who embraced him during the emotional moment. A boy beyond his years, with the support of a fantastic cast and filmmaking crew.

For Buckley, who recently became a mother herself, playing Agnes — Shakespeare’s wife — carried additional weight.

“I don’t know if anything really fully prepares you completely for motherhood,” she says. “What it unlocked in me, what I was looking for as a woman was a tenderness, which led me towards becoming a mother in some shape or form.”

She added: “We tried to go as far as we could. I would never want to experience what Agnes experiences.”

Mescal portrays Shakespeare, though Maggie O’Farrell’s novel — and Chloé Zhao’s adaptation — shift focus away from the playwright to Agnes and the family dynamic.

“I just tried to put him in my body rather than in my head,” Mescal shares. “People think about Shakespeare as this intellectual beast, and he clearly was a very smart man, but I think there is a real animal quality too.”

The actor said he drew inspiration from Shakespeare’s plays, asking himself: “What would’ve caused somebody to write something like this? What’s the psychological state of somebody who writes ‘King Lear?’ What’s the psychological state of somebody who writes ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’?”

Two-time Oscar nominee Emily Watson, who delivers a one-scene wonder, praised the creative environment on set.

“It felt like a privilege to be in the room,” Watson reveals. “My life began with Shakespeare. Just to be touching this story felt like an amazing thing to be doing.”

She singled out Zhao’s vision: “Just to see the electricity and magic being summoned by this living witch here — I had the best seat in the house.”

Zhao, who became the first woman of color to win the Academy Award for best director for “Nomadland” (2020) five years ago, says she hopes “Hamnet” provides audiences with a safe emotional space.

“If people can walk away having had the safe space just to feel things they might not feel comfortable [with], or given the space to feel, [and] could process some emotions, that alone, that two and a half hours is worth it,” Zhao said.

She added: “If we can all trust that every one of us has the ability to alchemize all the pain we had experienced in life — sometimes it doesn’t make any sense — but it’s not just William Shakespeare. We all have that ability.”

The cast also teased their next projects. Buckley will star in “Bride of Frankenstein,” which she described as “being plugged into an electrical current and turned up to 20.” Mescal is in rehearsals to play Paul McCartney in the upcoming four-part Beatles movies project, citing “Michelle” as his current favorite song by the band. The films will begin shooting in Nov.

“Hamnet,” which premiered last week at Telluride, continues its festival run as awards season buzz builds around Zhao’s direction and the cast’s performances.