Paul Mescal, an Irish film, theater, and television actor, is most known for his Academy Award- and BAFTA-nominated role as Calum Paterson in the 2022 film Aftersun. He rose to prominence after playing Connell Waldron in the BBC Three and Hulu miniseries Normal People, for which he received a BAFTA TV Award and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
He was a talented defender in his youth but left his potential Gaelic football career owing to an injury and quickly turned to acting. He is a Lir Academy alumnus who has also earned a name for himself on the Dublin stage.
Mescal received a Laurence Olivier Award for his role as Stanley Kowalski in a 2022 production of the play A Streetcar Named Desire. He formerly dated American singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers and participated in one of her music videos. He is scheduled to participate in several exciting films, including the planned sequel to the 2000 smash Gladiator.
Biography
Mescal was born in Maynooth, County Kildare, on February 2, 1996, to Paul, a semi-professional acting schoolteacher, and Dearbhla, a Garda. He is the eldest of three children, including a brother and sister. He went to the post-primary school in Maynooth.
Mescal played minor and under-21 Gaelic football for Kildare and is a member of the Maynooth GAA club. Gaelic footballer Brian Lacey lauded Mescal’s defensive abilities, while physical trainer Cian O’Neill regarded him as “mature beyond his years… very developed and very strong”. He quit the sport because he hurt his jaw.
After making his stage debut at 16, Mescal received admission to The Lir Academy at Trinity College Dublin following an audition in which he portrayed the titular Phantom in the musical The Phantom of the Opera. In 2017, Mescal earned a Bachelor of Arts in Acting. Before graduation, he signed with agencies to advance his acting career.
Personal Details
- Name: Paul Mescal
- Date of Birth: February 2, 1996
- Age: 28 Years Old (As of February 2024)
- Birth Place Maynooth, Ireland
- Profession: Actor and Model
- Famous Role: Calum in the Film Aftersun (2022)
- Nationality: Irish
- Religion: Christian
- Hometown: Maynooth
- Zodiac Sign: Aquarius
Career
Mescal graduated from the Lir Academy in 2017, and that year, he performed in various Dublin theatre performances, including The Great Gatsby and The Red Shoes. The following year, he played a supporting role in The Plough and the Stars at London’s Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. Mescal debuted on television in 2019 with the comedic series Bump.
That year, he won his breakout role in Normal People, a coming-of-age drama based on Sally Rooney’s novel. The sexually explicit show follows the on-again, off-again romance of two Irish teenagers, Connell and Marianne (played by Daisy Edgar-Jones), as well as their struggles with mental illness.
Ordinary People premiered in 2020 and became the most streamed series on the BBC that year. It was also hugely popular on Hulu. Critics commended the lead actors’ performances, highlighting their chemistry. According to Sophie Gilbert, staff writer for The Atlantic, “Edgar-Jones and Mescal generate so much intensity that any scene without them almost feels like an affront.” Mescal won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his work.
Mescal’s meteoric rise continued with more successful flicks. First came a supporting role in the award-winning film The Lost Daughter (2021), based on Elena Ferrante’s novel. He then portrayed a young guy accused of rape in God’s Creatures (2022).
Similarly, Mescal played a father who takes his 11-year-old daughter (Frankie Corio) to Turkey on a holiday in Aftersun, which premiered at Cannes in 2022.
A New York Times writer, A.O. Scott, commended Mescal and Corio’s performances, stating, “They are so natural, so light and grave and particular, that they don’t seem to be acting at all.” Mescal eventually garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
Mescal next starred as a damaged war veteran in Benjamin Millepied’s Carmen (2022), a modern movie adaptation of Georges Bizet’s classic opera set on the US-Mexico border. Mescal and Andrew Scott played characters in All of Us Strangers (2023) who start a sexual relationship while struggling with past tragedy.
The picture received excellent reviews. Mescal’s other credits in 2023 include Foe, a sci-fi thriller set in 2065 following a terrible global calamity. Mescal was also cast in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2, a sequel to Russell Crowe’s box-office smash from 2000. The film was intended to be released in 2024.
Net Worth
Paul Mescal is Irish and works as an actor and model. In 2024, Paul Mescal had a net worth of $2 million. The drama relationship TV show “Normal People” (2020) and the drama movie “Aftersun” (2022) both had roles that made him famous. For 2020, the Gold Derby TV Awards named him Breakthrough Performer of the Year. In 2021, the British Academy Television Awards named him Best Actor.
