Actor Paul Mescal has drawn much acclaim for his work over the years from Hulu’s “Normal People” series to films like “All of Us Strangers,” “Aftersun” and “The Lost Daughter”. Now he’s set to enter a new echelon as the lead star of Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II” opening in cinemas this month. It’s easily the biggest budgeted work he’s done to date, and very much a full theatrical release.
That’s seemingly important to Mescal who, during an interview with , is against one label that many films these days get – ‘content’. In fact, he has real issues with that word and its application to works of art. He says: “Over the last few years people have been talking about films as content.
That’s a filthy word. It’s not ‘content’, it’s f—ing work. I’m not being snobby, but there are two concurrent industries.
One that works with a lack of care, artistic integrity. Go nuts, make stuff with Instagram followers as a factor, whatever..
. But the other is what has always been there – the craft of film – making, directing, lighting and production design. That keeps artists alive.
” Mescal has multiple films on the way including Chloé Zhao’s historical drama “Hamnet” about Shakespeare (Mescal) and his wife (Jessie Buckley) getting over the death of their son, and Oliver Hermanus’ historical romance tale “The History of Sound” in which he and Josh O’Connor play two lovers recording folk songs in rural New England during .