‘History of Sound' Director Oliver Hermanus on Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor's Deep Romance, Gay Sex Scene Discourse and His Alexander McQueen Biopic

Yahoo

20-05-2025

Acclaimed director Oliver Hermanus ('Beauty,' 'Living') is back at the Cannes Film Festival after almost two decades, ready to bring some movie star heat and stir emotions with a lush romantic drama starring Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor.
'The History of Sound,' first conceived in early 2020 before the onset of coronavirus, instantly generated social media buzz on announcement. At the time, Mescal and O'Connor were fledgling internet boyfriends starring on prestige shows 'Normal People' and 'The Crown,' respectively. Five years later, and they're two of the most in-demand actors in show business.
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Adapted from a collection of short stories by author Ben Shattuck, the film follows Lionel (Mescal), a talent singer from rural Kentucky with big dreams. Attending the Boston Music Conservatory in 1920, he meets David (O'Connor), who is eventually drafted to war. Their attraction is instant and blossoms into a meaningful but fleeting romance, which Lionel reflects on throughout the course of a celebrated life and career.
Variety caught up with Hermanus on the ground in Cannes to discuss the breathless road to production, current depictions of gay sex and intimacy on screen and the anticipated biopic he's got coming next.
It's quite strange because, 14 years later, it feels very much the same. Everyone's got money, there's a lot of screaming and things are overpriced.
Josh and I have the same agents in the U.K., and he read the short story around the same time as I did. We had a conversation, but then the world went into COVID lockdown and I went back to South Africa. He said to please keep him in my brain when I have a screenplay ready. That was easy to do. I met Paul when I cast him in 'Living,' which he wound up not having time to do. He and Josh also met around the same time. The film was always almost falling apart, but it worked out for us in a nice way and their careers have obviously skyrocketed.
I went door-to-door with this movie to all the obvious places. So many people crunched the numbers. I'm pretty sure there's a literal machine at A24, a heavy old Oracle that shoots out a fax with a number. It always says '$8 million,' no matter what. I really couldn't do it for $8 million. Sara Murphy came on as a producer in late 2020 and we went to AFM and places like that [to raise money]. People said to me, 'These guys are wonderful, but they're TV stars.' Talking about Josh on 'The Crown' and Paul in 'Normal People.' Then Josh got 'Challengers' and Paul got 'Gladiator.' Somewhere around the Oscars in 2023, Paul and I were both there and talked to anyone who would listen about this movie. Miraculously, this came together before they got way too old to play these roles.
Do you think? I make really sad movies.
Yes, it's a very romantic story. It's a profound concept of nostalgia and using the metaphor of sound for how we retain feelings. Before the 20th century, that wasn't possible. How might it feel to hear your parents' voices long after they're dead? And yearning. It's an interesting thing to try to understand. We confuse yearning for obsession and unrequited love. You can long for someone, and not just because they aren't there.
It's 2025, and queer audiences want more. We've all seen a lot of tropes, especially when it comes to biopics. I'm working on one right now about Alexander McQueen. He was a gay man, HIV positive, artist, genius, living in the world of fashion with addiction, and then there's suicide. I remember watching [Ryan Murphy's] 'Halston,' and seeing there is a path of queer people being successful and celebrated and flying too close to the sun. They are incinerated in some tragic ending. I think it sticks in our heads that that our lives could potentially go down this path, when our sexuality and lifestyles have a danger or sadness to them. All the secrecy and repression. I've made one, my film 'Beauty.' But I'd like to offer audiences something else, a different queer experience.
Can you restore it, though? The cat's out the bag. I love films that have raw sexuality, it'll take a lot for me to be shocked or feel endangered by queer sex. I made a TV show in 2023 called 'Mary and George,' and we would stand on set trying to think of new sex positions. I would turn to Nicholas Galitzine and say, 'What have you not done?' He would go, 'I got fucked that way yesterday. I already did an orgy with that guy the other day. I topped that guy and bottomed for the other.' The intimacy coordinator would come over with an iPad and flip through new positions. It was the point where I was just trying to differentiate a French orgy from a British one, like Legos.
There are moments, but I was very determined to not have the assumptions of sex scenes be pivotal, or gear changes in their relationship. That's not the film. They stick together from the first day they meet. What I love is the moments that bring sex about, and then the moments after. Josh's character has this amazing thing where he keeps collecting all the feathers that are falling out of Paul's pillow and stuffing them back in. That's romance.
Tradition is such an interesting American theme. We think of America as a young country compared to Europe, but there's a long history and it's fascinating to see these roots. You find things like the songs Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone sang, the songs that Joni Mitchell sang. They all come from this process of other people coming from Ireland and England and Africa to the U.S. to converge into a tapestry. The music goes way back and carries religious and racial context, especially roots in slavery. It shows you how rooted America is in being a country of immigrants.
I inherited this after it was in development for many, many years. I've started from scratch. My friend Harry Lighton [director of this year's Cannes entry 'Pillion'] wrote the screenplay for me. McQueen is a hard one. How do you make a biopic about a man who defies a biopic? It has to be form and genre bending.
The great Sandy Powell, who I worked with on 'Living,' she and I have been talking a lot about McQueen. If the art of the movie is fashion, that's a really meta moment for someone like Sandy to achieve. It's one of our biggest challenges. If you did a movie about Da Vinci, do you just print out the Mona Lisa? Or do you have someone repaint it?
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