In the last three years, Paul Mescal has become one of the greatest new actors to watch for. Before NORMAL PEOPLE, the actor was a complete unknown, and only three years later, he’s already been nominated for an Emmy, a BAFTA, and an Academy Award, and has become a critics’ darling, as he keeps choosing to do indie films, where characters are much more important than action. Discover his Top 10 performances below.
Irish actor Paul Mescal has been nominated by Bafta Scotland awards for AFTERSUN. The directorial debut from Scottish director Charlotte Wells received five nominations including best film and best writer. Mescal and Corio are among nine first-time Bafta Scotland nominees, with 13-year-old Corio being the youngest person ever to be nominated for the awards.
NORMAL PEOPLE plucked the Irish actor from anonymity, sparking a new global infatuation. Now, Nicole Kidman’s barging into his dressing room, Ridley Scott’s gift-wrapping GLADIATOR 2 for him and AFTERSUN has earned him a surprise Oscar nomination: “It’s been a f***ing wild year.”
AFTERSUN is now available to rent on Google Play! 20 years after their last holiday at a fading vacation resort, Sophie reflects on the rare time spent with her loving and idealistic father, Calum (Paul Mescal). Sophie’s recollections become a powerful and heartrending portrait of their relationship, as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn’t, in Charlotte Wells’ superb and searingly emotional debut film.
Charlotte Wells’ moving debut feature AFTERSUN details a father-daughter vacation at a cheap resort in Turkey. There’s something unknowable about Calum (Paul Mescal), and maybe this is because Sophie (Frankie Corio) is a child, and he’s her dad, and she’s just about coming to the age where she’s separating herself and becoming her own person. As both a gorgeous ode to the faultlines of memory in family life, and a single, heartbreaking portrait of a father and daughter set to prematurely part ways on a number of levels, AFTERSUN is a genuinely standout feature debut.
Paul Mescal knows how to score a free vacation. Since breaking out in 2020 on Hulu miniseries NORMAL PEOPLE the Irish actor has collected passport stamps from some of the most idyllic places on Earth, shooting movies in Australia (CARMEN), Greece (THE LOST DAUGHTER) and Turkey (AFTERSUN). “That’s part of the grand plan: just to put myself in films that are in parts of the world I’ve never been before,” Mescal jokes in a recent interview. “And hopefully they turn out to be good!” His globetrotting scheme paid off with AFTERSUN (in theaters nationwide), one of the year’s most critically acclaimed films with 97% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
Paul Mescal heartbreakingly leads another A24 drama. The NORMAL PEOPLE breakout star appears in both GOD’S CREATURES and AFTERSUN two films set to be distributed by A24. Mescal plays a father adrift on a holiday alongside his 11-year-old daughter Sophie (Francesca Corio) in Turkey in the late 1990s. A present-day Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) reflects over 20 years later on the tense trip with her father.
Actor Paul Mescal’s new movie AFTERSUN is set to open the 75th Edinburgh International Film Festival. The film, by Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells, debuted at Cannes’ Critics’ Week garnering rave reviews and won the French Touch jury prize. It stars NORMAL PEOPLE actor Mescal and newcomer Frankie Corio as a young father and his 11-year-old daughter who are on holiday at a resort in Turkey in the late 1990s.