“If it impacts my life in that way, I’ll be in a bad spot.”
Paul Mescal has said that he doesn’t want his rising fame to get in the way of “getting drunk at a party” or “meeting someone at a bar”.
The Irish star has enjoyed a near-meteoric rise to fame since starring as Connell in 2020’s Normal People, however, he is about to jump to the next step when he stars in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator sequel.
The Maynooth man has expressed some discomfort with being in the spotlight already and said that if he becomes any more famous, he’ll “be in a bad spot.”
Paul Mescal doesn’t want to let fame stop him ‘meeting someone at a bar’
Speaking to The Times, the 27-year-old, who stars alongside fellow Irish actor Andrew Scott in the romantic drama All of Us Strangers, said he’s not interested in the celebrity life.
“Then you’d see yourself as somehow different and I don’t want to do that,” he told the publication.
“I’d just get too f***ing bored. I don’t want to close myself off to going out and meeting someone in a bar, or getting drunk at a party. That would turn me into a boring human. It would be dangerous to start wrapping yourself in cotton wool and not be out in the world, through fear.”
Paul Mescal photographed by Pip for The Times pic.twitter.com/1leAA4WB9e
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) January 14, 2024
He is however, aware of the fact that his celebrity status may be about to reach orbit, following the upcoming release of the much-anticipated sequel to Gladiator, one of the biggest movies of all time.
“I don’t know what the difference will be,” he says about the fallout from the film, where he plays the nephew of Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus in the 2000 original.
“Maybe that’s naive? Is it just that more people will stop you in the street? I’d get profoundly depressed if that’s so and hope it isn’t true.
“I’ll have an answer next year, but if [the film] impacts my life in that way, I’ll be in a bad spot. I’d have to move on and do an obtuse play nobody wants to see.”
You can see Mescal in the cinema next when All of Us Strangers comes to Irish screens on January 26.
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