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Paul Mescal
Mescal in 2021
Born	(1996-02-02) 2 February 1996 (age 28) Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland
Education	Trinity College Dublin (BA)
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2017–present

Paul Mescal (/ˈmɛskəl/; born 2 February 1996) is an Irish actor. Born in Maynooth, he graduated from The Lir Academy in 2017 and subsequently performed in plays, such as The Great Gatsby, Asking for It and The Lieutenant of Inishmore, in Dublin theatres. Mescal received praise for his starring role in the miniseries Normal People (2020), earning a British Academy Television Award as well as a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award.

Mescal made his film debut with a supporting role in the psychological drama The Lost Daughter (2021), and received praise for starring in the 2022 drama films God's Creatures and Aftersun. His performance as a troubled father in the lattermost earned him a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Early life and education

Mescal was born on 2 February 1996 in Maynooth, County Kildare to Dearbhla, a Garda officer, and Paul, a schoolteacher who acted semi-professionally as well. The eldest of three children, he has a brother and a sister. He attended Maynooth Post Primary School. He was a minor and under-21 Gaelic football player for Kildare and a member of the Maynooth GAA club. Gaelic footballer Brian Lacey praised Mescal's skills as a defender, while physical trainer Cian O'Neill described him as "mature beyond his years ... very developed and very strong". He gave up the sport after a jaw injury. Mescal performed on stage for the first time at age 16, portraying the titular Phantom in the musical The Phantom of the Opera, after which he auditioned and gained admission to The Lir Academy at Trinity College Dublin. Mescal graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Acting in 2017. He secured agents for his acting career prior to his graduation.

Career

Theatre and television roles (2017–2020)

Upon obtaining his Bachelor of Arts degree, Mescal was offered roles in two theatre productions, Angela's Ashes and The Great Gatsby; he took on the latter and starred as the titular Jay Gatsby at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. He also portrayed the Prince in a contemporary retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's The Red Shoes at the same theatre that year. Mescal played a role in the world premiere of the 2018 play Asking for It by Louise O'Neill at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin; Steve Cummins of The Times commended his distinctive performance. That same year, he starred in the Rough Magic Theatre Company's productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream for the Kilkenny Arts Festival and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for the Dublin Theatre Festival as well. In 2020, Mescal performed in the play The Lieutenant of Inishmore at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre.

Mescal starred in his first television role in the drama miniseries Normal People, an adaptation of the 2018 novel of the same name by Sally Rooney. It premiered in the UK on BBC Three and in the US on Hulu in 2020. He played student Connell Waldron; he viewed the role as different from himself in the way Waldron's traits include hesitance and emotional unavailability. Like the actor did in real life, the character plays Gaelic football and attends Trinity College. Mescal's performance earned him acclaim as well as the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor. In their respective reviews for Variety and Slate, Caroline Framke called Mescal's navigation through the character's emotional collapse "breathtaking", while Willa Paskin noted his concurrent embodiment of "intelligence, insecurity and quiet confidence". He also received nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie and the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Movie/Miniseries.

Mescal starred in Drifting, a short film, which was screened at the 2020 Galway Film Fleadh. He played a firefighter in the Channel 5 miniseries The Deceived and appeared in the music video for the song "Scarlet" by The Rolling Stones in August. Reviewing The Deceived, The Independent critic Ed Power highlighted Mescal's effortless "sleepy-eyed charm" and "flawless" Donegal accent.

Film career (2021–present)

Mescal made his feature film debut with a supporting role in The Lost Daughter, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal in her directorial debut. Released in 2021, the psychological drama garnered favourable reviews. The following year, Mescal starred as a troubled young father in the drama Aftersun and a man accused of sexual assault in the psychological drama God's Creatures, both of which premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. The two films received positive reviews, with Mescal's performances gaining praise. Carlos Aguilar of TheWrap wrote that in Aftersun, Mescal "turns in one of the very best roles in his still emergent career", adding that he "continues to assert himself as an actor drawn to portrayals of conflicted men in projects with hefty pathos". Among several accolades, he received nominations for the Independent Spirit Award and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Also in 2022, Mescal starred in Carmen, a contemporary film adaptation of the opera of the same name. He began playing Stanley Kowalski in a revival of the play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams at the Almeida Theatre in December 2022. The production will run until February 2023. Reviewing the production for The Times, Dominic Maxwell opined, "Mescal is tremendous: he makes the latent violence of Stanley Kowalski into something easy, tangible, vibrant yet unactorly."

Mescal will next star in Foe, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Iain Reid, and in Strangers, an adaptation of Taichi Yamada's novel of the same name. He replaced Blake Jenner in Richard Linklater's Merrily We Roll Along, an adaptation of the 1981 musical of the same name, which will be filmed over 20 years.

Personal life

Mescal resides in London. He plays the piano. In July 2020, the actor performed spoken word and sang with Irish singer Dermot Kennedy at the London Natural History Museum. He performed in a virtual stage reading of the play This Is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan as part of a series to benefit the Actors Fund of America charity in October of the same year. Mescal has been in a relationship with singer Phoebe Bridgers since 2020. He appeared in Bridgers' music video for the song "Savior Complex", directed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

Filmography

Film

Television

Music videos

Theatre

Awards and nominations

References

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External links

• Paul Mescal at IMDb

• Living people
• 1996 births
• 21st-century Irish male actors
• Alumni of Trinity College Dublin
• Best Actor BAFTA Award (television) winners
• Gaelic football backs
• Irish expatriates in England
• Irish male stage actors
• Irish male television actors
• Kildare Gaelic footballers
• Male actors from County Kildare
• People associated with Trinity College Dublin
• People from Maynooth