Paul Mescal is shocked by the amount of “agency” he has as an actor.
Paul Mescal has a lot of ‘agency’ as a film star
The Hamnet star has been able to work on passion projects at an early stage of his career and believes it comes from being clear-minded in his approach to the industry.
In an interview with Collider, Paul said: “I think the thing that has surprised me is that you have more agency as an actor than you think you do if you know what films you want to make.
“I’ve always assumed that there’s this kind of success, and then you are suddenly in Fast and Furious 12. And it was weird, those things never came my way, actually, because I never really went looking for them.”
The Irish actor continued: “That’s what I mean by the control you have. If you know what you want to make, and you know who you want to work with, it’s a wild privilege because you have access.
“You can set up a meeting with Chloe Zhao in the mountains in Telluride and have a conversation, and that’s really exciting, but it also feels like you have agency. Because I was always afraid that the concept of Hollywood takes that agency away, and I’m sure it does for some actors.”
Mescal, 29, feels that “Hollywood actors” are now more global than they were in the past.
The Gladiator II star said: “When you don’t grow up in the ecosystem of that, like I grew up in Maynooth, it’s not like growing up in London and having actors and the industry around you.
“I suppose being an actor in London, to me, feels the same as being an actor in Hollywood. I think the world is kind of becoming more globalised, and it feels like you can be a ‘Hollywood actor’, in inverted commas, kind of anywhere in the world now, which is cool.”
Paul plays William Shakespeare in Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet – a dramatisation of The Bard’s marriage to Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley) – and knew that the acclaimed movie was special the first time he watched it.
Asked when he realised the flick’s potential, he said: “I think when I started rehearsing with Jessie, before we started shooting.
“I’d had read the script, so I was aware that the ceiling for what the film could be, to my mind, was pretty high.
“I wanted to go into the weeds with, I think, one of the great actors of our time and one of the great directors of our time with this material. This was something that I felt could have been, and was, an extraordinary experience.
“Then, watching it for the first time in a studio space in London, I was like, ‘Oh, this is the film that I felt like we were making. This is the film we made’, which I don’t think is often the case. So yeah, it was pretty early days for me.”