Paul Mescal is best when he says nothing. He plays young men who cannot get the words out, and in a small room with one other person he is as good as anyone of his age. Put him in an arena and he shrinks.
Fi1m perspective
Watch what Connell Waldron's shoulders do in Normal People (2020). They are up round his ears in the school corridor and down in Marianne's bedroom. Mescal has the gift of looking like he is thinking when he has no line, and Daisy Edgar-Jones matched him. The scene in which he asks her to tell nobody about them, and she agrees, and the two of them stand there pretending this is fine, left us hot with embarrassment on both their behalves. Neither actor raised a voice. That is the whole method, and it was there from the start.
The career since has widened out from there. After Connell came a supporting part in The Lost Daughter (2021) and the lead in Charlotte Wells's Aftersun (2022), a troubled father, the film most people mean when they call him a serious actor, though we have not reviewed it. Then All of Us Strangers (2023) for Andrew Haigh, a stage A Streetcar Named Desire, and the move to scale: Ridley Scott's Gladiator II (2024), Chloé Zhao's Hamnet (2025) and The History of Sound (2025).
What he does well is the loneliness under the charm. In All of Us Strangers Harry is Andrew Scott's neighbour, and the early scenes between the two men are slow and honest about how people who have been alone a long time get used to being touched. Harry is written thinner than the parents, and we learn about his life in a handful of lines. Most critics did not notice the gap. We did, and we still thought he was good.
The big films have not yet found a use for him. Gladiator II hands Lucius a dead wife, a grudge and a secret and mistakes those for a person; Mescal scowls and fights well and is never allowed to want anything except the next man's death. Some reviewers decided he lacked the presence for a blockbuster lead; we think the script gave him nothing to be present about, and Denzel Washington, who was given plenty, walked off with the film. In Hamnet Zhao keeps his Will quiet, hesitant and at the edge of the frame, and not a line sounds like the man who wrote the plays. We think that was deliberate and we are not sure it was wise. He weeps well. The film asks him to do it for an hour.
He knows the sad-young-man reputation is there, and has said of it, "I don't know if I'm finished with that yet, but I might be finished with that?" He tried once, in armour, and it did not suit. What we would like next is a script that trusts him with words as well as silences, and a director who leaves him in the middle of the picture. Until then, the bedroom scenes remain the ones to watch.
Biography
Paul Mescal is an Irish actor. He was born on 2 February 1996 in Maynooth, County Kildare. He studied acting at The Lir Academy and performed in plays in Dublin theatres.
Mescal's breakthrough came with the leading role of Connell Waldron in the BBC/Hulu miniseries Normal People (2020). He made his film debut in The Lost Daughter (2021) and appeared as Calum in Aftersun (2022), Harry in All of Us Strangers (2023), Lucius in Gladiator II (2024) and Will in Hamnet (2025).
On stage, he portrayed Stanley Kowalski in a West End revival of A Streetcar Named Desire (2022). His accolades include two BAFTA Awards and a Laurence Olivier Award, as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
