Laertes, informed of his father's death, returns to Denmark, and leads a mob to storm and take the castle (act 4).

The King explains to him who the real killer was, and incites Laertes to kill Hamlet and avenge Polonius's death.

When Ophelia appears in her mad condition, Laertes laments, saying that if she had her wits she could not persuade him more to revenge.

She had climbed into a willow tree that hung over a brook, and then fell into the water when a branch broke.

In act 5, at Ophelia's funeral, Laertes asks why the normal Christian burial ceremony is not being carried out for his sister, and rebukes the priest for questioning her innocence.

When Laertes attacks Hamlet, the two have to be held back – at the king's command – to avoid a fight.

Laertes is often portrayed by seemingly humble actors to give a loyal, wholesome appeal to the character.

He has been played by Terence Morgan (1948), John Cullum (1964), Nicholas Jones (1970), Nathaniel Parker (1990), Hugh Bonneville (1992), Michael Maloney (1996), Liev Schreiber (2000), Edward Bennett (2009), Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (2015), Luke Thompson (2017) and Tom Felton (2018).