Paul Mescal shares gas behind-the-scenes detail from infamous sausage ad

Simon Kelly

He’ll never live it down, will he?

Paul Mescal is well on his way to becoming one of Ireland’s biggest ever acting talents. His meteoric rise over the past few years will culminate in his starring role in Ridley Scott’s sequel to Gladiator this year.

However, part of being Irish is never forgetting your roots and, in some corners of the country, Mescal will always be known as “yer man from the sausage ad”.

That infamous Denny’s advert pre-dating his Normal People fame has come back to haunt him once again, as it was brought up on his guest appearance on Louis Theroux’s podcast.

Paul Mescal shares gas behind-the-scenes detail on infamous sausage ad

Speaking as the first guest on the new season of The Louis Theroux podcast, the documentarian brought up the advert, to which the 27-year-old was more than happy to share some behind-the-scenes details on.

“You got your big break on a sausage advert… How old were you?” asked Theroux.

“Too old to say yes to a sausage advert, but I was desperate,” joked the All of Us Strangers star, adding that it happened around a year before Normal People.

@spotifyuk Paul ? too many sausages #TheLouisTherouxPodcast #PaulMescal #SpotifyPodcasts ♬ original sound – spotifyuk

The Maynooth man then went on to share some interesting details on how he approached the set as a young, inexperienced actor.

“I remember not knowing how the spit bucket works on set,” he revealed. “I just remember feeling it was so rude to spit out your food and then the guy would come up with the bucket and I was like ‘no, no, no, it’s fine'”.

Theroux then asked how many sausages he actually ate on set instead of just spitting them out between takes.

“Probably in excess of about ten I would say. Too many sausages to be eating at about 8am in the morning,” replied the Oscar nominee.

He then added that the advert is “something that people in Ireland reference a lot, to kind of bring me right back down”, to which Theroux jokingly replied, “That’s more or less why I did it.”

He’ll go on to do big things that Mescal fella, but he’ll always be ‘Sausage Paul’ to us.