Paul Mescal Faces His Demons |
Paul Mescal, known for breaking out in the Hulu series Normal People and his Oscar-nominated work in Aftersun, had never made a blockbuster until he signed on for Gladiator II—a massive-scale tentpole that casts him as Lucius, the son of Russell Crowe’s Maximus. On this week’s Little Gold Men, the actor chats with Rebecca Ford about trading indies for Ridley Scott’s epic, a film that challenged him to face his fears in more ways than one. “I think most of the demons in my head existed in the four weeks after I landed in Morocco, before we started filming,” Mescal says. “That’s when it was at its peak. And something settled for me when Ridley slapped me in the back and said, ‘Your nerves are no fucking good to me.’ And then he throws me into that scene and then puts me on top of the wall.”
Elsewhere in HWD, Savannah Walsh runs down everything we know so far about the fast-tracked second season of Nobody Wants This; David Canfield goes deep with Lola Petticrew, star of the gripping new Northern Ireland–set FX series Say Nothing; Hadley Hall Meares digs into the laugh-filled life of Mel Brooks; and VF has some ideas for what to buy the Star Wars fan in your life this holiday season. |
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