‘Elsinore’ Director Simon Stone, Basking in Telluride’s Glow, on Making a Movie About Love of the Theater, the Peak AIDS Era, and Being ‘100% in the Service of Andrew Scott’

By Chris Willman

Chris Willman

Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic

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The Telluride Film Festival casts a wide net, as almost all festivals of its ilk do, but if it has had any speciality that stands out among many, it might be the well-earned tearjerker. There is as much crying at Telluride every year as there isn’t in baseball, but with the festival’s emphasis on top-line prestige fare, returning patrons look forward to going through some emotional catharsis in the mountains every Labor Day weekend. Among the 2026 lineup, probably no film got passholders any deeper in their feels than “Elsinore,” starring Andrew Scott and directed by Simon Stone. Their remarkable film dramatizes the true-life story of a well-known British actor — Ian Charleson, of “Chariots of Fire” fame — who died at the peak of the AIDS crisis in 1990, but who spent his last months and weeks staying alive long enough to achieve the life goal of playing Hamlet at the National Theatre.

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