Paul Mescal is looking to take a break from the spotlight after the past few years put his career into overdrive.
After breaking through in the film world with “Aftersun” in 2022 — which earned the 29-year-old Irish actor his first Oscar nomination — Mescal made his blockbuster debut with 2024’s “Gladiator II” and starred in both indie romance “the History of Sound” and buzzy awards contender “Hamnet” in the past year. Next up, he’ll play Paul McCartney in Sam Mendes’ four anthology Beatles films, due out in 2028 — but hopes to keep a low profile until then, as he told The Guardian in an interview alongside his “History of Sound” co-star Josh O’Connor.
“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,” Mescal said. When asked if that means “rationing” his workload, he replied: “I think so. I’m gonna have to start doing that. For sure.” However, Mescal added that “rationing doesn’t necessarily mean less.”
“It means learning that films like ‘The History of Sound’ take more out of the well,” he clarified. “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.”
But is Mescal worried his burgeoning career might lose momentum if he disappears for a while? “That’s the great fear,” he said. “But what’s the alternative? I don’t want to resent the thing I love.”
Besides the Beatles biopics — in which he’ll star alongside Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr — Mescal has nothing else on his docket besides occasionally filming Richard Linklater’s “Merrily We Roll Along,” which is shooting over the span of two decades as its actors age. However, he’s currently in the thick of an awards campaign for “Hamnet,” Chloe Zhao’s historical drama in which he plays William Shakespeare. The film has earned rave reviews and sparked Oscars buzz for Mescal and his co-star Jessie Buckley.
“Once I’ve finished promoting that, I hope nobody gets to see me until 2028 when I’m doing the Beatles,” Mescal said. “People will get a break from me and I’ll get a break from them.”
Read Mescal and O’Connor’s full Guardian interview here.
