Paul Mescal doesn’t do grandstanding.
The 29-year-old Irish actor has built a career on what he suppresses, not what he unleashes. Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet brings that understated strength to William Shakespeare’s portrayal of a father devastated by the loss of his son.
“You can count on one hand the number of these kind of big cathartic moments that someone experiences in their life,” Mescal, who had just arrived in Los Angeles the day before the Golden Globe Awards, where he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, explained on a Zoom call. “What makes me stand tall when I watch performances in general is that there are some epic performances that I envy the actors for being able to do. But when I see it, I don’t recognize people.”
That philosophy is the basis for his performance in Hamnet, a film that explores the contrast between grief and how a couple breaks down under the pressure of unimaginable loss. Starring opposite Jessie Buckley, Mescal found herself tailoring her performance to the film’s subjective focus on her character while maintaining the emotional truth of her father’s suffering.
Courtesy of Agata Grzybowska
“Probably what I’m most proud of in this film is the balance that exists between Jesse and I in moments where we express what’s happening to us as a couple and as two individuals in completely different ways,” he says. “Couples understand. You can go through any traumatic event as a partnership or as a family. Oftentimes you’re experiencing the same thing through very, very, very different lenses.”
The role comes at a pivotal moment in Mescal’s career. Six years after “Normal People” introduced him to international and TV audiences, he is now juggling multiple long-term jobs. Four films about the Beatles, directed by Sam Mendes and starring Paul McCartney, and Merrily We Roll Along, directed by Richard Linklater and now in its third or fourth year of filming, is a 20-year project. Still, he remains grounded, living outside the Hollywood system while gaining recognition for his work within it.
When it came to playing the Bard himself, Mescal found liberation in Shakespeare’s visual anonymity. “I think it’s very freeing when you don’t necessarily know what someone looks like, because it also just frees up your imagination as an actor and you don’t feel constrained by the resemblance,” he points out. Instead, he focused on what connected him to historical figures. “I’m an artist and he’s an artist, not someone who didn’t grow up in London. I felt this fascination that I had to go to London to go to this cultural center to represent what Shakespeare was. That’s what I felt when I wanted to be an actor.”
Read excerpts from his interview below. Edited and condensed for clarity.
Paul Mescal stars as William Shakespeare in Chloé Zhao’s ‘Hamnet’
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When you first read the script, what went through your mind or made you nervous about portraying a father who goes through every parent’s worst nightmare?
I think the big fear I had was probably something similar to “Aftersun,” but I think I learned a lot from it. In “Aftersun,” I was really deep into fatherhood and parenthood, and I’m not about those things. And I think that gave me a lot of confidence. Because I think parenthood is rooted in love, and I don’t think you have to be a parent to act out love. It’s only after you go through something like that and form a really close bond with someone like Frankie that you step into something like this. Thanks to that experience, I wasn’t nervous about performing, which I had never experienced before in my life. It gave me the first confidence.
The big challenge with this is, obviously, you represent a lot of parents who have lost a child, but it’s a layer above. I approached it by looking at what happens to certain couples when they lose a child. As you probably know, it’s often a miracle that couples stay together.
Much of your work here relies on what is withheld rather than spoken, that is, restraint. How do you reconcile that as an actor, especially in an emotionally charged story?
That’s probably true of my career in general, restraint. I like working in places where there is restraint. I might argue that there was definitely a lot of restraint in this, but I think there are big moments in this movie where you have to step in and tear it up a little bit. I love working within a kind of suppressed capacity, and I think that’s true for humans too, so I can count on one hand the number of such big cathartic moments that someone experiences in their life. Generally speaking, when I watch a performance, I get taller because there are performances on such big stages and I envy actors who can do that, but sometimes people don’t understand when I see them.
Your performance is very internal, whereas Jesse Buckley’s performance is more physical and external. How did you work together to create that balance?
Because that’s also the nature of what Chloe was interested in. I think it would have been a mistake if I had gone big and Jesse had gone big, or vice versa. You have to understand what this movie is about, but the first 70% is subjectively looking at Agnes. Anya is truly the main character. You must be a good dance partner. You’ll have to see what you get. I don’t like to actively think about what I’m doing on set because I get a lot from Jesse and so does she.
In the preparation process, we spend a lot of time imagining repetitions of certain scenes, which essentially becomes an exercise in our imagination of what would happen if Jesse did this. I’m just trying to get an idea of what the scene could potentially be. And when you’re there, I’m not thinking about how my face is moving or what I’m doing. I build a set of rules in my head about who this person is and how they interact with the world.
Do you still have impostor syndrome moments?
I’m nominated along with Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn, and people I’ve watched all my life. This entire category is made up of big movie stars. I know it sounds nonsense when I see my name written, but it’s strange for me to get used to this. I didn’t grow up with a standard of what Hollywood or this industry is like.
To be honest, this part of the industry isn’t necessarily where I live. I made one movie here in the United States, and I’m so grateful for my work and the world we live in now, where the Hollywood studio system is no longer the center of the world. It is still the center of the film industry. However, you can make films in Türkiye and have them seen. You can live your life outside of LA and this place and Hollywood without being tied down to it.
What was the most difficult scene to film?
Two things immediately come to mind, and they’re rooted in the fact that Jesse had a very special relationship with her, and I think that speaks well to Chloe’s setup. She is a very important person in my life. For the first four weeks, we shot semi-chronologically, running around, falling in love, and being creatively attached to each other. Then we started getting into the heavier sections.
There’s a scene where Will comes back from London and gives her a present, and he says, “What do you see?” And when she doesn’t say anything and he respects her, it was so hard for us not to consciously fight to not find each other, and I think that’s conveyed nonverbally in the movie. It’s very, very difficult when you have to be teammates, but I think it’s great for this movie.
Tie the other end in the same way. When Jesse was going through the birth and death scene, I was away from the scene for about seven or eight days. It’s a shock to the system. As we go about our daily lives, we become separated from our imaginary family. The first shot I took when I came in that day was me listening outside the door. Hamnet has just died and I’m just standing in a dark tent waiting for him to come in. I think the first take was the first take that Chloe used in the movie for the scene where I come back. Basically, it’s been about two weeks since I’ve seen them. It was intense.
You played Paul McCartney in Sam Mendes’ four Beatles films and are committed to joining director Richard Linklater’s 20-year-long project, Merrily We Roll Along. What can you tell us about that and what does that long-term commitment look like?
To be honest, I can’t say much due to my contract, but I feel like I don’t have much to say about this because I’m so excited that people want to know so much about it. I think this initiative is completely unique. The four of us are pinching ourselves in it. On a personal level, I’m very excited to be working on something of this scale, but it’s also rooted in my performance with Sam and the great writers. But it’s also about living and working in London and finding some kind of stability after a kind of crazy six or seven years since Normal People came out.
I don’t want anything to do with the Beatles, not because I’m shy, but because I actually think the world would benefit from knowing as little as possible about them. It’s almost finished. That is my job throughout 2026.
Sam Mendes and Richard Linklater, the directors I’ve been working with this year, must be having what feels like a pinch themselves moment.
This is also a reference to pinch yourself moments. I am very happy with the directors Sam Mendes and Richard Linklater that I will be working with this year. I plan on working on one thing for at least the next 20 years.
What do you want people to know about your collaboration with Chloé Zhao and Jesse Buckley on “Hamnet”?
It is very difficult to adequately express the public side of this job, but there is a real love and friendship between us. It’s not even camaraderie. It’s the kind of thing I love, it’s collaboration, it’s not just about work anymore. Me, Chloe and Jesse, we’ve seen so much inside each other that we feel very protected by them. I care very much about them and am very proud of what we created together.
