Andrew Scott halts Hamlet for laptop user: Inside the actor's defiance of "show must go on" rule

Currently, Scott is commanding media attention in anticipation of his latest movie "All of Us Strangers". Set to premiere in theaters on February 9th, it adds to his portfolio of acclaimed roles in "Spectre", "Sherlock", "Victor Frankenstein", "Fleabag", and "His Dark Materials". During a recent appearance on the film podcast "Happy Sad Confused", he also shared his love for theatre and narrated a previously untold anecdote from 2017.

That year, he was performing "Hamlet" at the Almeida Theatre in London. During one performance he defied the "show must go on" rule, bothered by the disturbing behavior of one audience member.

"When I was playing Hamlet, a guy took out his laptop – not his phone, his laptop – while I was in the middle of 'To be or not to f*cking be,'" Scott said to "The Guardian".

"I was pausing and [the stage team] were like, ‘Get on with it’ and I was like, 'There’s no way,'" expressed Scott further. He affirmed that while the pause was unduly long, he refused to let go of the disrespect he was subjected to, consequently fixing his gaze at the man who sat nonchalantly with a laptop on his lap.

Scott recollects that the audience member, deemed disrespectful, ceased his e-mail activities only after a woman next to him called his attention to the ongoing disturbance. Scott is convinced that the individual was under no illusion about the reason behind the interruption of the renowned monologue from Shakespeare's masterpiece.