Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Irish actor Paul Mescal arrives for the 95th Annual Oscars Nominees Luncheon at the Beverly Hilton ...
[+] Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on February 13, 2023. (Photo by Chris Delmas / AFP) (Photo by CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images Long celebrated in London and Dublin, Irish actor Paul Mescal is a few short weeks away from exploding in supernova fashion in the States this November 15, courtesy of the incendiary British director Ridley Scott, with Mescal’s portrayal for Scott of Lucius Verus, avenging son to Russell Crowe’s dearly-departed Maximus, in Gladiator II . Mescal is not unknown on American shores — he received a 2023 Oscar nomination for Best Actor for the lead performance in the Charlotte Wells-written and directed indie-hit Aftersun — and it’s not seldom that such a “surprise” Oscar nomination presages the imminent global explosion of this or that actor.
But it is in Mescal’s native Ireland and on London’s West End, and occasionally in France, that he has been steadily putting in the miles on film and on the boards and winning accolades for fine performances. Point is, Americans are about to hear a lot more from Mescal, so we might as well take a look at what sort of Irish-born thespian we’re actually getting. Yes, They All Speak Perfect Gaelic: (L-R) Barry Keoghan, Paul Mescal and Kerry Condon attend the .
.. [+] 95th Annual Academy Awards on March 12, 2023 in Hollywood, California.
(Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images) Getty Images An avid practitioner of man-style, Mescal is staking out a broad fashion-boy claim in the volcanic territory somewhere between F1 star Louis Hamilton and the eccentric young-Jaggerish thrustings of Harry Styles. On balance, the 28-year-old Mescal is a bit less fashion-forward, a lot less spangly and a lot more down-home than either of those front-row fore-fathers, although he does bear similarity to both of them in his resolute, unapologetic song-and-dance-man/nerd wear — blaze white socks with black shoes and baggy high-water-in-the-basement trousers that make the anklewear shine, topped by a simple white tee. In that moment, in that classic kit, Mescal was busy channeling one of his Irish-American style forbears, the redoubtable Gene Kelly, when he was snapped by a member of London’s enormous packs of roving paparazzi dogs this past May 30, who caught him outside a fashionable Islington, London, boite called Bar 69.
Mescal was snagged by the paparazzo grabbing a smoke and landing a series of obviously successful witticisms upon an obviously admiring Natalie Portman, of all possible unexpected companions, who also enjoyed a cigarette-in-hand. Point is not whether there’s a bit of casual May/October romance in the cards, which, parenthetically, would only be a good thing should it have borne any relationship to the reality. Rather, the heavy romance breathing came from the British tabloids, who were quick to note that Ms.
Portman’s high-profile split from her former-dancer-husband Benjamin Millepied had been finalized. Again, the point is none of the above. MORE FOR YOU Florida Braces For ‘Dirty Rain.
’ What That Means There Is Only One Actor Who Can Take Over As MCU Wolverine From Hugh Jackman Northern Lights Forecast: Here’s Where You Could See Aurora Borealis Tonight The point is — are you ready, Los Angeles? — the Mescal man loves his drink and loves chatting up women while hanging at a pub. He has the rare blade’s talent for drawing them out. Young, old, young, massively famous, not-quite-famous, or somewhere in-between — and whether they smoke or not — they adroitly line up to take a smoke break with Mescal, in Gene Kelly kit or no.
Then, there’s the Mescal mullet. This mullet is not problematic for a set of very, very specific reasons! More precisely put, Mescal has been sporting the ordinarily much-maligned do for a couple of years now, pictured top at the 2023 Oscars nominees’ luncheon in the Beverly Hills Hotel in February 2023. Fascinatingly, the Mescal mullet, or more accurately — given the Gladiator II trailer — the 2000-year-old Late Roman Empire iteration of the mullet as utilized by the slave-POW-gladiator class in the blood-soaked sand of the Coliseum is not just un-problematic.
This mullet — carried proudly and messily on the head of the Mescal man — has soared into the fashion stratosphere to become a thing, meaning, a style statement pored endlessly over by Mescal’s increasing numbers of (largely female) fans in the fashion press. function loadConnatixScript(document) { if (!window.cnxel) { window.
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As a former footballer, he obviously prefers high levels of articulation in his workouts and thus utilizes leg-freeing shorter shorts. This has not gone unnoticed: The ladies want shots of Mescal as often as possible in a range of man-style Daisy Dukes. Paul Mescal, Serena Williams and Venus Williams at the Gucci fashion show during Milan Fashion Week .
.. [+] Menswear Spring/Summer 2025 held at Triennale di Milano on June 17, 2024 in Milan, Italy.
(Photo by Aitor Rosas Sune/WWD via Getty Images) WWD via Getty Images Pictured above, Mescal rocks a pair of non-workout short-shorts that he, curiously, but very specifically, chose to wear to Milan Fashion Week’s Gucci Menswear SS 2025 show on June 17. This pair of shorts, unabashedly channeling the classic “hot deckhand” look for the Mediterannean superyacht set, inspired a whole different set of Women’s Wear Daily headlines . The frank fashionista lower-body love of Mescal aside, back to the mullet.
Unlike the mullets belonging to Richard Dean “MacGyver” Anderson or those of retired fire chiefs or Hell’s Angels’ chapter presidents, the Mescal mullet inspires exactly zero debate, only admiration. Incredibly, it, this one specific mullet, has soared out of its demographic track and is considered a non-satirize-able, unadulterated, good Man-Style Thing by fashionistas far and wide. In fact, we might reasonably venture that the Mescal mullet is a transformative mullet precisely for that stratospheric level of untouchability — for those who live and breathe in the special Mullet Kingdom as well as for those far outside the moats surrounding the Mullet Kingdom.
In short, there’s only ever one instruction, repeated often in the Mescal press, related to what we might call Mescal’s “Super-Mullet,” and, no matter the publication, that style instruction runs effectively something like this: Clip this photograph so that you can force your boyfriend to take it to the barber and say, ‘I Want That Haircut.’ Unclear for the moment is whether the supernatural marketing powers of Mescal’s mullet will extend its vast defenses to other people’s mullets. The jury’s out, but the trackside chatter and endless love among the fashionistas indicate no, this is a one-off.
It’s specific to Mescal..
