Gladiator II star Paul Mescal is unpacking some of his previous comments about audiences’ parasocial relationship toward him.
“It’s just a weird thing because ultimately I don’t know you, you don’t know me, but we know a lot about each other because we’re visible the whole time,” the Academy Award nominee said recently on an appearance of Sean Evans’ popular Hot Ones interview, “and I think audiences sometimes misconstrue the characters that I play versus who I am.”
Mescal, whose leading role in the limited series Normal People catapulted him into the limelight alongside screen partner Daisy Edgar-Jones, said he is unwilling to bend to public pressure or conceptions when it comes to his film career.
“I mean this with the greatest sincerity and kindness, but I don’t really care what people want me to do because I think the minute you start catering to an audience you’re ultimately beginning to do them a disservice,” he explained. “Because I’ve never considered it before and if it’s working at the moment, which I hopefully feel like it is, then I want to keep doing that until it starts going downhill.”
The actor previously addressed an “appetite from the world” on part of his personal life in a cover story with Harper’s Bazaar last year. “The stuff that hurts is the personal stuff. It’s nobody else’s business and should never be commented on because it’s indecent. And it’s unkind,” he said at the time, potentially referencing the immense speculation over his relationship with musician Phoebe Bridgers. “Honest answer, it makes me angry … It’s the entitlement to the information that people expect that just drives me f—ing mad.”
Elsewhere during his appearance on Hot Ones, Mescal reflected fondly on the show that jumpstarted it all, including a minor hiccup during the chemistry reading process that he initially believed could signal curtain-call.
“I did some chemistry reads with other actresses for Marianne, and we didn’t get the Marianne from the first round of chemistry reads, and I thought at that point that could be lights out for me because they’ll just go back to the drawing board,” he said. “But thankfully they didn’t and Daisy was the second-to-last person who walked in. You hear actors and directors talk about it kind of incessantly but when you know you know, and when Daisy walked in, it was unanimous.”
Mescal can soon be seen in Ridley Scott’s epic sequel, Gladiator II, due in U.S. theaters Nov. 22. The Aftersun actor will portray an adult Lucius from the 2000 original, on a quest for vengeance against the ailing Roman empire. Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger also star, with Connie Nielsen reprising her original role.