I’m ready within the corridors of London’s Soho Lodge, and Paul Mescal is already 25 minutes late. I ponder, has the actor—the 27-year-old Irish heartthrob who’s gone from Regular Folks’s quietly considerate and delicate Connell Waldron to the Oscar-nominated, Olivier Award-winning, Gucci and Cartier-clad star of Aftersun and A Streetcar Named Need in simply 4 brief years (and is now poised to enter his blockbuster period because the lead of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2)—gone full Hollywood? Under no circumstances, because it seems. When he lastly arrives, dressed casually in blue denims, a white T-shirt, and Adidas trainers, he seems positively bereft, decreasing his piercing blue eyes and apologizing profusely for the delay. We sit down and begin our interview, however he retains apologizing—and continues to take action even after our chat, as I take the elevate again all the way down to the foyer with him. I’m completely charmed—and satisfied, not that I wanted a lot convincing, that he’s a Connell by and thru.

Mescal’s magnetism is as pronounced on display as it’s off it—and plain in his newest position: Harry, the mysterious and flirtatious neighbor of Andrew Scott’s brooding screenwriter Adam in Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers, which is now in cinemas. A profoundly private venture for its director, who himself got here of age as a homosexual man within the late ’80s, the surreal romance follows Adam as he seems again on his youth and, upon visiting his childhood dwelling, finds his mother and father (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy)—who died in a automobile accident when he was 12—someway residing there, as if it’s nonetheless 1987. It presents him a chance he by no means had—to return out to them and, hopefully, be accepted. In the meantime, again within the steely tower block wherein he now lives, Adam begins a relationship with Harry, an effusive presence who, nonetheless, has demons of his personal, too. Quickly, these two worlds collide to head-spinning impact.

His half not too long ago earned Mescal a BAFTA nomination for finest supporting actor, nevertheless it isn’t the one efficiency that’ll maintain him firmly within the awards dialog within the weeks, months, and years to return: there’s Ridley Scott’s forthcoming swords-and-sandals epic, in fact (which I can not, below any circumstances—as I’ve been repeatedly informed by publicists—ask Mescal about), but additionally Oscar winner Chloé Zhao’s tackle Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, wherein he’ll play a roguish younger Shakespeare, and trade stalwart Richard Linklater’s new musical, Merrily We Roll Alongside, which will probably be—watch for it—filmed over the course of 20 years.

Beneath, the actor talks us by all of those present and upcoming tasks, and opens up about his intercourse scenes with Andrew Scott, tearing up on the press tour, and why he hopes to be happier in 2024.