Paul Mescal’s Road to Gladiator II Began With a Broken Nose
When Gladiator premiered, in 2000, Paul Mescal was just 4 years old. “My parents were responsible and didn’t allow me to watch it until I was 13,” he recalls. “I watched it with my dad on TV and absolutely fell in love with it. It became one of my favorite films.” Fast-forward to today, and Mescal is living a dream come true as the star of Gladiator II, Ridley Scott’s sequel to the Oscar-winning epic. “I’m comfortable making the admission here that I played with fake swords until I was around 15,” Mescal says, laughing. “Most children stop when they are 10. So, to be given an opportunity to do it in a way that is the least embarrassing way possible, I was super excited to do that.”
As Lucius, the son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus from the original film, Mescal takes on a physically demanding role alongside Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, and Joseph Quinn. It's a stark contrast to his breakout portrayal of the quiet, introspective Connell in Normal People, which catapulted the now 28-year-old Irish actor to fame. Up next, Mescal will reprise his role as Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, bringing his performance to the Brooklyn Academy of Music after a successful West End run. “There’s more similarities between Stanley and Lucius than between Connell and Lucius,” he says with a laugh.
Ridley Scott has said that you reminded him of the actor Richard Harris.
[Touches his nose] I think it was this. The nose that caused me great concern in secondary school. It was broken when I was playing Gaelic football. We were warming up for a match, I went down to pick up a ball, and somebody got there before me and his head cracked me in the face. I was out cold, then I woke up and there was this black mass underneath my eye. I was like, "What's that?" It was my nose impairing my vision all the way across.
No one knew it was going to be on a huge screen at some point.
They didn't know it was going to be the reason that Ridley Scott cast me in Gladiator II.
They basically built the entire Colosseum, right?
They built it on the exact same site that they built the Colosseum for Gladiator. I felt the scale. But the biggest set I was ever on was actually the set of the opening battle sequence in Morocco. An eighth of that set would’ve covered the budget for every single other film that I've done my entire life.
You had a long break because of the strike. Was that waiting period difficult for you?
I have no patience, period. We were about five weeks out from finishing, and the strike was happening. It’s one of the better things that has happened to this industry. Not the strike itself, but what came after it was great for the industry. But at that moment, you're racing to the end, and it was months and months and months of downtime and trying to figure out when exactly we’d be going back. You go into a headspace that I don't like being in, which is waiting.
Did you, as an athlete, welcome the training that was required for this role?
I loved the training! I'm not going to be an actor who's like, “It was torture.” Maybe that's because I'm slightly masochistic. But I do like the fact that it feels like a labor of sorts, finishing work and feeling physically tired. Not in being mentally overstimulated, because you get that anyway at work, but that feeling of physical engagement and needing to sleep at the end of the day—that specific kind of fatigue is not something that I've experienced on other films.
Have you ever lied about having a certain skill in order to land a part?
Yeah, I said I could drive for Normal People, and I could not drive. We'd signed the paperwork, I'd gotten the part, and then I'd forgotten about doing my driver's license. So I ended up doing Normal People on a provisional license. I could only drive the car if there was a fully licensed driver beside me.
At least you stuck to the rules instead of just faking it.
Yeah, no. I do all my own stunts. [Laughs] I did the best driving—and we have this on record—that anybody's ever done on-screen in Normal People. [Laughs]
So you're in Formula 1 now.
Yeah, I'm in Formula 1.
You got an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for Aftersun. What was your first Academy Awards experience like?
The Oscars was the greatest circus that I've ever been to. I took my parents. My mom's great in that environment. Dad got to dance beside Cher at an afterparty. He likes to say that he was dancing with Cher, but he was dancing in her vicinity. He was the happiest man on the planet. The thing about the Oscars is you're able to go to the bar during it. They've got people who come and fill your seats. Mom felt like it was too rude to leave, so she became close friends with the people who were coming to fill the seats. I'd come back and she'd be like, “Do you want to go back to the bar again? I'm having a better time without you.”
Do you have a favorite reality show?
The Traitors—the U.K. one. It’s highly stressful, highly entertaining. Great to see the kind of psychological warfare that goes on. And the manipulation is second to none.
What's your biggest pet peeve?
Laziness. I hate people who waste time, people who aren't prepared. And I'm not just talking about a work context. It's like, I think I've got a good nose for when people are just kind of winging it, and I don't like that. And unless something needs to be said, I'm not going around policing laziness in society.
Style Director: Allia Alliata di Montereale. Hair for portfolio by Paul Hanlon at Dawes & Co.; makeup for portfolio by Sam Visser at Art Partner; manicures for portfolio by Michelle Saunders James. Set design by Gerard Santos at Lalaland.
Creative producer to Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott: Leonard Cuinet-Petit at January Productions; producer to Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott: Kevin Isabelle; produced by AP Studio, Inc.; executive producer: Alexis Piqueras; producer: Anneliese Kristedja; associate producer: Kimmy D’Ancona; production manager: Hayley Stephon; production coordinators: Miranda Dos Santos, Susan Lucas; photography assistants: John Neate, Jed Barnes, Chris Whitaker, Kendall Peck; digital technician: Niccolo Pacilli; digital assistant: Cassian Gray; postproduction by Dreamer Post Production; fashion assistants: Tyler VanVranken, Molly Cody, Celeste Roh, Raea Palmieri, Tatiana Isshac, Haleigh Nickerson, Lauren Marron, Savannah Steilner, Sage McKee, Frankie Benkovic, Kaley Azambuja, Tatum Sanchez; production assistants: Gigi Rosenfield, Lily Cordingley, Eli Cash, Lex Vaughn, Anderson Renno, Kat Saravia, Kyle Dekker, Wyatt Noble, Brandon Martin, Moose Krupski, Josh Muwwakkil, Bradley Gonsalves, Drew Carter, Thomas Lynch, Alex Kofman, Jackson Schrader, Anatalia Zavaleta, Joseph Wride, Matt Flynn; first AD: Steve Kemp; location manager: Kyle Hollinger; hair assistants: Kim Garduno, Ben Gregory, Marco Iafrate, Hyacinthia Faustino, Chris Foster; makeup assistants: Shimu Takanori, Laura Dudley, Brian Dean, Beatrice Sandoval; manicure assistant: Cheyenne Vander Schuur; set design assistants: Seth Powsner, Denver Stoddard, Ryan Johnson; tailors: Irina Tshartaryan, Ripsime Vartanyan, Jackie Martirosyan at Susie’s Custom Designs, Inc.