If you’ve already seen Hamnet, you might want to savor that Paul Mescal performance.
The Irish actor is talking about the looming awards campaign for Chloe Zhao’s Oscar-favorite drama, in which he stars with Jessie Buckley as Will and Agnes Shakespeare, respectively, grieving the loss of their son.
He’s become quite the superstar in recent years, first capturing our hearts in Sally Rooney’s Normal People with Daisy Edgar-Jones before roles in All of Us Strangers, Aftersun and Gladiator: Part II.
But in a recent interview with The Guardian alongside The History of Sound co-star Josh O’Connor, Mescal says we might be seeing a little less of him until his outing as Paul McCartney in Sony’s Beatles movies, currently set for 2028.
“I’m five or six years into this now, and I feel very lucky. But I’m also learning that I don’t think I can go on doing it as much,” said the Academy Award nominee. When asked if he’s talking about rationing himself, he replies: “I think so. I’m gonna have to start doing that. For sure… Rationing doesn’t necessarily mean less,” he adds.
“It means learning that films like The History of Sound take more out of the well. You can’t keep going back and expect to consistently deliver something you’re proud of. What that rationing looks like, I don’t know. I miss being on stage, so I might have a time when I’m only doing theatre for a couple of years. I also have different priorities in my personal life that I want to attend to.”
“Once I’ve finished promoting [Hamnet],” said Mescal, “I hope nobody gets to see me until 2028 when I’m doing the Beatles. People will get a break from me and I’ll get a break from them.”
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery star O’Connor echoes Mescal’s desire for some time out of the spotlight. “I’m going to take some time off, too,” says the Brit. But the pair also weigh up balancing their mental and physical health with keeping visible. “That’s the great fear,” says Mescal about not being able to stay current. “But what’s the alternative? I don’t want to resent the thing I love. This sounds bold, but I’d rather not be on the train if that is the choice.”
Says O’Connor, who also features in Kelly Reichardt’s slow-paced heist movie The Mastermind: “The nightmare is resenting the work… Also, the more we see of an actor, the harder it is for that actor to pull the wool over your eyes and convince you they’re someone else.”
Sam Mendes’ four Beatles movies are set to star Mescal, Harris Dickinson, Joseph Quinn and Barry Keoghan as McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, respectively. Aside from that and Richard Linklater’s Merrily We Roll Along film, shot over the course of 20 years with its actors aging in real time, Mescal has nothing coming imminently.
He’s gunning for another Oscar nomination for Hamnet, with Buckley currently the frontrunner in her category.
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