Latest news with #Mescal
RTÉ News
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Paul Mescal dons monochrome look for Cannes film premiere
Paul Mescal made a glamorous appearance at the 78th Cannes Film Festival last night, where he attended the premiere of his newest film, The History of Sound. Established in 1946, and running this year from Tue, May 13, 2025 – Sat, May 24, 2025, the festival has been one of the most watched events in the celebrity and fashion calendar, with some of fashion history's most memorable looks appearing on the steps of the Palais des Festivals. Mescal had landed in the chic French city days before his event, attending the Kering Women in Motion gala alongside Charli XCX, Nicole Kidman, Salma Hayek and more. Styled by Felicity Kay, his ensemble was typically eye-catching: a Gucci suit with a pale cream shirt accented with a gold hoop. The look certainly set the tone for what the Aftersun star would wear for his premiere. Also styled by Kay, Mescal stepped out in a monochromatic black outfit by Gucci, pairing a sharply tailored black blazer with flared black trousers and a matching black shirt that had a loose, retro-inspired tie detail. He finished his look with black dress shoes and a gold earring. Also walking the red carpet for the premiere was singer Gracie Abrams, who is believed to be dating Mescal, and who wore an elegant black midi-length dress by Chanel, with beaded straps and a matching shawl. Supermodel Coco Rocha turned heads in her red carpet look, wearing a design by Inout Ravzan that was made to resemble multiple shirt collars. She paired that with towering hair and statement earrings.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Yes, Paul Mescal can sing in 'The History of Sound'
CANNES, France — If you are not perpetually online, you may have missed a TikTok titled 'Paul Mescal Having Pipes for a Minute Straight.' Ardent fans already know that Mescal — jovial Irish lad IRL and incredibly talented sad boy from 'Normal People,' 'All of Us Strangers' and 'Aftersun' — can sing. They've circulated 2012 clips of him playing Javert in 'Les Misérables' and the titular role in 'Phantom of the Opera,' both from when he was 16 and in high school. Occasionally, the actor, 29, has posted videos of himself playing piano and singing at home, including a lovely, impressive duet of 'Nothing Arrived' by Irish indie folk group Villagers alongside Mescal's sister, Nell. He's also been a surprise guest vocalist at a concert of Irish singer Dermot Kennedy, played guitar and sang in a music video for a mostly songless film adaptation of the opera 'Carmen,' and even performed a musical parody of 'Gladiator II' on SNL in 2024 — which may be the first time the public became aware of those pipes. That word, though, hadn't quite gone international, judging from the pleasantly surprised gasps, impressed murmurs and longing sighs that echoed throughout the theater during the premiere of Mescal's singing-infused period epic, 'The History of Sound,' at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday night. Ever since the film — a quiet, heartbreaking gay romance set in and around World War I — was announced as a Cannes selection, there have been two burning questions: How's the chemistry between its co-stars, Mescal and Josh O'Connor — two of the biggest young actors of the moment? And how's Mescal's singing? Reviews have been giving shockingly little space to either of these very important topics, so it seemed imperative to dive in. The sepia-toned film — from South African director Oliver Hermanus ('Moffie,' 'Living'), with a script that Ben Shattuck adapted from his own short story — is told from the perspective of Mescal's Lionel, a farm boy raised on guitar-plucked folk songs in rural Kentucky who has both synesthesia and a voice that lands him at the Boston Conservatory of Music. At a bar, Lionel overhears a fellow music student, O'Connor's David at the piano playing a song Lionel's father used to sing to him. Soon, David gets the entire bar to quiet down and cajoles the much-shier Lionel into singing a traditional ballad for him, 'Silver Dagger,' which is essentially a mother's warning to her daughter about men. The only sound in the scene is Mescal's absolutely angelic voice, until David, listening intently, starts accompanying him on piano. Mescal brings a sense of utter joy to Lionel as he sings; this is what he loves more than anything in the world. And you can tell from O'Connor's face that David is mesmerized. It's hard for the audience not to be, too. David immediately begs Lionel to sing him every folk song he knows. That lesson turns into many other joyous nights around the piano, and eventually a night when David asks Lionel to walk him home and the two take their bond to its natural next step. After being torn apart by war, they embark on a blissful summer together hiking through Maine to 'collect' recordings of American folk songs on wax cylinders. There are long dialogue-free stretches, and even when the men are talking, an economy of words. The end of that summer is perhaps the film's greatest tragedy. Early reviews of the film and singing have been mixed. The film's tone was too 'listless' for some, and the BBC's Nicholas Barber wrote that 'Mescal's singing never sounds any better than anyone else's in the film.' Still, his many plaintive renditions of American heritage songs — which were stuck in this viewer's head for days — are deeply felt. 'The power of the music alone makes it one of the most unabashedly romantic LGBTQ films in recent memory,' wrote David Rooney of the Hollywood Reporter. Much of the premiere audience had no quibbles, and seemed primed to love anything Mescal did. The two young women sitting next to this reporter were practically shaking with excitement that they'd scored last-minute seats, and sighed deeply every time Mescal let that lovely voice fly. The actor got a 'We love you, Paul!' shouted from the balcony, and a prolonged standing ovation once the movie ended. Mescal said during Thursday's news conference that he's long been surrounded by the kind of traditional Irish music that influenced so much of the American folk music in the film, 'so it's music that I grew up being familiar with,' he said. (O'Connor couldn't attend the premiere because he's filming Stephen Spielberg's untitled new sci-fi film with Emily Blunt. Rooney accurately describes his charming singing style as 'tuneful' but 'with more gusto than vocal skill.') This film is, bar none, the most of Mescal's singing his fans will hear yet — at least until he finally gets the Broadway musical he's broadcasted wanting to do. As for the chemistry question, the actors are overflowing with it. 'Josh is one of the easiest people to build chemistry with,' Mescal said at the news conference. '[Josh] has a great gift [in that] the person the general public sees is very close to the person we know,' Mescal continued. 'That's a very difficult thing for an actor to do in today's age.' The two men were attached to the film as it developed for four or five years and already came to know each other well. For three or four weeks, they filmed in the woods together, sharing inside jokes and warming up in cars instead of film trailers. On-screen, that gravitational pull is rarely shown with the touching of flesh, but rather through loving, sometimes lustful gazes and dialogue laden with unspoken meaning. More than a few critics brought up parallels to 'Brokeback Mountain,' Ang Lee's celebrated 2005 story of repression and longing among cowboys. Mescal pushed back on that notion in the news conference: 'I personally don't see the parallels to 'Brokeback Mountain,' other than we spend a little bit of time in a tent, but to each their own.' He added, 'To be honest, I find those comparisons relatively lazy and frustrating. For the most part, I think that the relationship that I have to the film is born out of the fact that it's a celebration of these two men's love, not a film about their repressed relationship with their sexuality.' Mubi bought the film out of Cannes and will be bringing it to North America sometime this year. The exact release date is unknown, but it will surely be accompanied by new TikToks of Mescal having pipes, and rightly so.
Irish Examiner
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
The History of Sound review: a tender romance that whispers when it should roar
The History of Sound ★★½ The History of Sound, directed with delicacy by Oliver Hermanus, is a tender, albeit timid, romantic affair. It stars Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor as two young men who meet at a bar in Boston in 1917, when the former discovers the latter playing a familiar song at the piano. Lightning strikes. Soon, they take off on a journey across the American heartland, recording folk songs and exploring forbidden love. There's a quiet intimacy at the core of the film, but it's wrapped in so much aesthetic gauze that you begin to wonder if it's trying to mute its own heartbeat. The source material — a short story by Ben Shattuck — is slight, and the film stretches it thin over nearly two hours, offering little in the way of surprise. Mescal plays Lionel, all clenched jaw and repressed emotion, while O'Connor's David is more poised, more inwardly unravelled, concealing pain beneath a thin sheet of charm. Mescal and O'Connor do the work here — it's a job well done, and we've come to expect that from these supremely talented actors. In many ways, this finds both performers in their comfort zones. Neither needs to break a sweat. Both are capable of great nuance—and they do find moments of unspoken connection that linger—but too often, they're asked to portray longing rather than truly live it. You can almost hear the director whispering, 'Slow it down, make it tragic.' It's finely curated, sure—but curated to within an inch of its life, leaving little room for exploration or emotional spontaneity. Admittedly, the film is easy on the eye, with cinematographer Alexander Dynan bathing every frame in nostalgia. The screen is coated in autumnal browns and frosty blues. There's rich Americana too: golden fields, dusty towns, handwritten notes, creaking wood, and scratchy recordings. However, beauty without bite starts to feel like a trick of the light rather than true emotional substance. The queerness at the heart of The History of Sound is handled with tenderness — but also with a frustrating level of timidity. In a post- Call Me by Your Name world, it's not enough to just hint and yearn—audiences now expect filmmakers to go there. The central relationship (and the audience) deserved higher stakes, more complexity, more mess. Instead, we get a series of desirous pauses, eyes meeting across campfires, lips almost touching in the dark. That's the keyword — almost. The film almost broke the internet, the audience almost clapped, the film was almost a triumph. That's not to say the film is without merit. It's a handsome, haunted film that might well devastate a patient viewer in the right mood. But for this critic, it felt like being handed a love letter that had been sanded down until the words barely registered. Sometimes, restraint is powerful — as Mescal has proven before. Other times, it's just another word for holding back.
Irish Examiner
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Paul Mescal's evolution: how the Irish actor is changing what it means to be a leading man
ONCE upon a time, movie stars lived in the clouds. They arrived on red carpets like gods descending from Olympus, cloaked in mystique, their charm filtered through decades of studio polish and publicist precision. We didn't know them, not really, and that was the point. They were larger than life, basically untouchable. You couldn't imagine Tom Cruise queuing for a sandwich, or Julia Roberts dragging her wheelie bin down a laneway on a dank Tuesday morning. Thankfully, those walls have come down. That version of stardom has bent to the times. Nowadays it's less celestial, more terrestrial. In its place is something more fragmented, and, perhaps, more truthful. Audiences no longer want their stars to feel like myths, they want them to feel like people — flawed, awkward, complex, and most of all real. In that cultural pivot, Paul Mescal has quietly become the face of a new kind of movie star. Not because he wanted to, necessarily, but because he showed us another way to be. Mescal is one of a number of modern stars — alongside Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh, Josh O'Connor, Zendaya — that fits the bill of a modern movie star, but he stands apart for his unadulterated relatability. In the decades since the heyday of the traditional movie star, we've seen the rise of the franchise actor, the influencer-turned-thespian, the superhero chameleon. In this scramble for visibility, authenticity has become the rarest currency. Audiences are no longer dazzled by size or spectacle; they crave that Mescalian brand of interiority. On and off screen, he offers it in spades. The Maynooth man didn't crash into the spotlight with blockbuster energy. He emerged, almost gently, in Normal People, clad in his now iconic O'Neill's GAA shorts, as Connell Waldron — a young man burdened by sensitivity and class confusion. Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar Jones in 'Normal People'. Picture: Enda Bowe In doing so, he offered something radically different: emotional vulnerability and unpolished masculinity. Audiences didn't realise what they wanted until it was in front of them. But now they know. What's striking is how quickly they recognised that deviation and gravitated toward it. Normal People became a cultural moment during covid. Connell's silver chain even had its own Instagram account, for god's sake. But more than that, Mescal's performance tapped into a deep hunger for representation of a certain kind of person — the kind who is unsure of himself, who suffers but can't always say why, who loves deeply but awkwardly. The Irishman played that part not like a marquee star, but like someone who'd lived it. With his burgeoning career still in its relative infancy, Mescal has since walked a path that seems deliberately crooked. While others in his position might have sprinted toward the security of a franchise or big-budget spectacle, he did exactly the opposite. He chose a harder but ultimately more respected route. Intimate, often uncomfortable films have become his playground. In God's Creatures, he delivered a disturbing, knotty performance that refused easy resolution. In Aftersun, he tore through the heart of cinema itself. In Andrew Haigh's heart-rending All of Us Strangers, his deep pain and sadness destroyed audiences and now, in Oliver Hermanus' The History of Sound, he's about to tear through it all again. This week, he will tread the tapis rouge for the second time at the Cannes Film Festival alongside co-star — and fellow softboi — Josh O'Connor, as they premiere the romantic drama on the Croisette. Mescal and O'Connor have risen the ranks of stardom together and have become good friends in the process. This union was inevitable. Mescal's 'The History of Sound' co-star Josh O'Connor. While they were born on different sides of the Irish Sea, they have become the poster boys for this new era of stardom. Delicate, vulnerable, but still classy in all the important ways. Their on-screen and off-screen personas rarely differ too much and that is less a swipe at their inability to get lost in a role than it is a compliment on how much of themselves they are willing to let the audience in on. Transparency is the name of the game. It's worth returning to Aftersun. Charlotte Wells' debut feature didn't make a major splash at the box office, but it stunned critics and provided a platform for Mescal's talent to soar. As Calum, a young Scottish father desperately wrestling with his mental health issues while on holiday with his daughter, Mescal offered a devastatingly internal performance. It was the sort of acting that conceals emotion in ways that make us feel it more acutely. With Aftersun, Mescal earned both an Oscar nomination and the trust of an audience that now expects him to do something more than just entertain. We expect him to move us. Of course, he too can entertain. Which brings us to Gladiator II, Mescal's first foray into big-budget fare and the first time his stardom was ever brought into question. Before its release, audiences wondered if the actor, known for his indie sensibilities, would be able to handle the transition to tentpole filmmaking. This felt like the moment when Mescal would 'go big'. Spoiler: He did. The film earned $340m and he was praised by most for shouldering the weight of the picture. Impressively, in that enormous frame, Mescal doesn't cower or disappear. He doesn't puff up to fill the space either. He carves out something precise and human. While the film boasts spectacle on top of all the sword-and-sandal pageantry expected of a Roman epic, Mescal brings something else entirely: Restraint. Paul Mescal as Lucius in Gladiator II As Lucius, he doesn't attempt to replicate Russell Crowe's gruff and brooding Maximus. He does some theatrical gazing onto the horizon, for sure, but he also does something more commendable by building a character from uncertainty. Lucius is a man wrestling with history, family, and identity. Mescal still gets to lock swords with adversaries but there is also a performance that dares to slow things down, to suggest that even in Rome's most operatic moments, a man can feel small, unsure, even afraid. By doing so, Mescal sprinkles a pinch of realism into Ridley Scott's oft-times preposterous Shakespearean spectacle. Critics did praise the film's ambition and grandeur, but many singled out Mescal's performance as its soul. It's a curious thing, in a film of that scale, for audiences to come away talking about a single glance or moment of stillness in a sea of violence. That's the Mescal effect. And so, post- Gladiator, the question isn't whether Paul Mescal is a movie star. He is. The question is what kind of star he wants to be — and what kind of star we now want. His career suggests that stardom is not a goal but a byproduct. He's not playing to the gallery, even if he has just taken the role of Paul McCartney in the upcoming Beatles biopic. He's not chasing fame for fame's sake. When he speaks in interviews, he does so with thoughtfulness, even discomfort. He's open about therapy. He doesn't pretend the attention doesn't rattle him. He still gets nervous. Still misses Kildare. Mescal represents a particularly Irish kind of fame, a humility shaped by place. However, it is more than just that. Mescal's appeal lies in how his Irishness remains unfiltered. He hasn't changed his accent. He hasn't dulled his edges. He's helped shift the dial on what international audiences expect from Irish actors, not just lyrical charm or brooding poet types, but complexity, modernity, and truth. He's part of a wider wave of Irish talent, of course. Saoirse Ronan, Barry Keoghan, Andrew Scott, Jessie Buckley — these are actors not only from the oul' sod but of the oul' sod, grounded in place and culture but never defined by it. They are living proof that Irish talent doesn't have to conform to cliches to succeed. They just need to be themselves. Mescal's trajectory is especially fascinating because he walks such a narrow line between arthouse and blockbuster, between intimacy and scale, vulnerability and strength. He is as comfortable in a slow-burning indie as he is at the centre of a Hollywood colossus. That range is rare. That control, rarer still. Mescal has arrived, and now he's asking what the arrival even means. Stardom today isn't about dominating the conversation. It's about having the courage to be quiet in a noisy room. The modern movie star doesn't need to tower above. They don't need to dazzle us. They just need to tell the truth. In Paul Mescal, we're not seeing the return of the old-school star. We're seeing the future. Not a supernova, but a slow-burning flame. Read More Battle for the coveted Palme d'Or will play out on the French Riviera
Sunday World
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sunday World
Paul Mescal says comparisons of new film with ‘Brokeback Mountain' are lazy
As Kildare actor showcases new gay role at Cannes Film Festival, he says 'The History of Sound' focuses on love, not repression John Lennon, whose half-sister would prefer Liverpool actors to play The Fab Four. Photo: Getty John Lennon, whose half-sister does not want Paul Mescal to play Paul McCartney. Photo: Getty Paul Mescal at the premiere of his latest film 'The History of Sound' at the 78th Cannes Film Festival. Photo: Reuters Actor Paul Mescal has rejected comparisons of his new period romance The History of Sound with gay cowboy classic Brokeback Mountain, saying the only thing they have in common is the characters spend time together in a tent. The History of Sound, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, stars Mescal and Josh O'Connor as Lionel and David, who meet at the Boston Conservatory in the early 1900s and fall in love over their shared love of folk songs. However, the couple are separated when David is drafted into World War I. After the war, they reunite to hike across Maine in search of oral-tradition songs to record, with the adventure having a profound effect on both men later in life. 'I personally don't see the parallels at all between Brokeback Mountain, other than the fact that we spend a little bit of time in a tent,' Mescal (29) told journalists at Cannes. Variety described the new film as 'Brokeback Mountain on sedatives', while The Guardian said it was 'a quasi-Brokeback Mountain film whose tone is one of persistent mournful awe at its own sadness' and gave it two out of five stars. There should be more films about the sort of dynamics and the nuances of queer relationships Mescal rejected the comparisons as lazy and frustrating, saying the focus of the film, unlike Ang Lee's 2006 Oscar winner, was a celebration of the characters' love rather than repression. South African director Oliver Hermanus, who was nominated for a Bafta for 2022 film Living, said that comparing his film with one that came out 20 years ago showed there was a deficiency. 'There should be more films about the sort of dynamics and the nuances of queer relationships, of relationships that are beyond the context of what most movies probably deal with,' he said. Mescal – who previously played a gay character in the heartbreaking romantic drama All of Us Strangers opposite Andrew Scott, before his Hollywood turn in Gladiator II – said his attraction to such roles was based on instinct. 'I personally celebrate actors who lean into their artistic compulsion, and if that's what I'm about to do at this moment in my career, I'm going to just hopefully pursue that for a little while longer until that compulsion changes,' he said. Meanwhile, Mescal's role as Paul McCartney in a series of films to be made charting the rise and lives of The Beatles has come in for criticism from John Lennon's half-sister. John Lennon, whose half-sister would prefer Liverpool actors to play The Fab Four. Photo: Getty Mescal will star alongside Harris Dickinson, Joseph Quinn and Barry Keoghan in a quartet of films about The Fab Four being made by Oscar-winner Sam Mendes. In an interview with MailOnline, Lennon's half-sister Julia Baird expressed her disappointment that the director did not decide to use actors originally from Liverpool. Mescal is from Co Kildare and Keoghan is from inner-city Dublin, while Dickinson and Quinn are from London. When the casting was announced, many Beatles fans complained about the actors, who they said bore no resemblance to the Fab Four. Now Lennon's sister has spoken out to back up their criticisms. It will be interesting to see what kind of accent he comes up. Nobody can do a Liverpool accent. They all get it wrong 'What's wrong with Liverpool?' she asked, suggesting the producers should have chosen unknown local actors for whom these could have been breakthrough roles. 'We have actors, and they speak the language. Paul Mescal is in everything – get real, come on,' Baird said. 'There are more actors out there waiting for a go and for a chance. 'It will be interesting to see what kind of accent he comes up with, because nobody can do a Liverpool accent. They all get it wrong.' Each of the four films will focus on a different member of The Beatles, with Mendes claiming they would all be released in cinemas within a month of each other.
