Paul Mescal

Some of your favorite actors have used backstage to kickstart their career. Denzel Washington, Al Pacino, Violet Davis, Chris Evans, that's Captain America. All you have to do to be just like Captain America is go to Backstage.com/subscribe and enter the code envelope at checkout for a 30 day free trial. That's 30 days of access to thousands of casting notices uploaded daily. I've debacked stage today and again use code envelope at checkout eMBELOPEE for free. Better up my job because I have more experience but I also feel way more shaky in terms of my relationships with the industry. The more you're there, the more eyes that are on you and if you're not like super thick skin, that creeps its way in. But on the other side of that I know that I've worked with some of the best directors in the world, some of the best actors in the world. So I feel like I've definitely improved since then. But I would love to kind of get the happy medium of the naivety of being young in this industry and the experience of gaming. Hello and welcome to another new episode of In the Onvalope, the actors podcast where the biggest names in film, television and theater help craft a complete guide to the creative life. I am your host backstage senior editor Vinnie Mancuso. Today we are joined by one of the most exciting young actors of the last decade. Maybe more? The great Paul Mescal. Now of course Paul first exploded into the public eye back in 2020 thanks to his wonderfully vulnerable portrayal of Connell in normal people across from Daisy Eger Jones and he's only proved himself time and again since whether that's leading massive blockbusters like Ridley Scott's Gladiator 2 or small scale dramatic fair like his absolutely heart wrenching turn as a quietly struggling father in Charlotte Wells after son which earned him his first Oscar nomination at 26 years old. He's got one hell of a slate coming up starting of course with Oliver Hermannes's romance the history of sound starring Paul and Josh O'Connor as two men who bond as they travel collecting folk songs following World War One. After that Paul's got Chloe Jow's hamnet where he's playing William Shakespeare when you hear him refer to Will this episode that is who he's talking about across from Jesse Buckley as his wife Agnes Shakespeare in the aftermath of their son's death. And yes of course coming down the pike is Sam Mendez's four Beatles biopics in which Paul is playing Paul McCartney alongside Harris Dickerson as John Lennon Joseph Cohen as George Harrison and Barry Keogan as Ringo Star. It's coming all the way in 2028 but we did talk about it here as rehearsals and camera tests have already begun. It was a true true pleasure getting to talk to Paul this is a fascinating look inside the process of an actor who doesn't talk a whole ton about that process as in depth as we get to here. Let's get right into it. Here is Paul Mezkel. Hi. Hi Vinnie. How's it going? Good. Yeah. Good good good. I always find it so interesting you know this process of getting like tossed into a conversation. Yeah. And I'm always curious you know from an actor's perspective of this as ever you know doing these things as her felt like you know like the chemistry reads you had to do the cold calls the sort of like. Yeah. Yeah. Well it is now I think that's a good it sometimes come feel like that actually. But I do want to know we have we have some time here I do have this sort of you know you're in a very interesting very incredible spot right now you have you know the the day's story of sound sort of I think it's coming out next week day after this interview. Oh gorgeous gorgeous performance. I have a you in Josh and Connor put on it's true it's really you know it's it's it's the Paul Mezkel special of just like that this and that aching love inside it's and stuff like that. You also currently have hamnet sort of destroying people yeah festivals from what I've heard. Um some I'm curious you know in these times of great distraction and things happening how you sort of stay. Cressen as a person you know when you are just surrounded by things and noise and things pulling your attention. I think I'm very lucky that the people that I'm sharing these films with in Josh O'Connor and Oliver Hermannas and Chloe and Jesse I feel like they're just true artists and I think I'm learning like on a practical level I'm learning that like to limit the amount of time that I'm spend talking about myself it's like coming off the back of like a like normal people are like a press tour like Gladiator I think I'm learning from my own sanity that these periods of time have to take up far less time than they've ever taken up before while still promoting the films that I love it's just about kind it's just a bit figuring and like learning from each part of the process as I'm going along and I think that does help help me feel sane and grounded. Absolutely I mean you were at an early escape from social media I feel like that was a big thing. It's a huge thing I think I think I'm not immune to it like I think you can still find social media that are actually being on social media I think it's like very much I'm very glad I took those steps to like actually get offered and not be public facing in that sense was kind of a little bit about like putting my money where my mouth was in terms of saying I didn't like it and actually getting offered or two different things I think it's also important to me as an actor that people because we see so much of people we see more people now than we've ever seen in like in time and I don't think that that is useful for an actor all that much which is already kind of as public facing as it gets but it's just it's kind of recipe that will always be unfinished it's like I imagine I'll kind of hopefully constantly be tweaking it for as long as I'm working. You mentioned and it's something I've heard a lot when I we talk about what is useful is not useful and you know that kind of stuff is not useful as an actor. Well it depends right it depends on the thing you're looking for right like it's like if I was doing a superhero movie social media like it would be useful to kind of get out and have a social media platform that is gets a trailer review to another what X amount of millions of people so I think it's not useful to me but I don't think that means that it's not useful generally and I think I'm learning that I think it's easy to kind of feel somewhat high on my view about the absence of social media but it's also I'm aware that I'm very much in the minority and social media is working for a lot of actors that I very much admire but I think it was more so for my own sanity versus a career usefulness thing. Yeah no totally well I'm kind of curious about like what you've found in general in life that is not acting that you find useful as an actor you know there was something that does fill the well instead of taking away from music at the moment I'm in the middle of Beatles prep and I'm finding like great like a kind of new sense of creativity and like it's kind of an amazing thing to like spend your the majority of your adult life needing permission from somebody to do the job that you want in acting and then something you start working music adjacent and you suddenly realize that nobody you don't have to ask permission to do anything to do that you just sit out of the piano you pick up a guitar and you get to engage in the kind of creative part of your your your brain I'm finding that really useful I think investing time in like the important relationships in your life because that's ultimately where you're going to be pulling from when the camera's turning over. Absolutely well I was sort of picking my way back through the short story you know this true of sound seeing anything to pick up here and this that's in this reread you know something that this this really short lovely line we're going to stuck out to me your character why not just saying like now in my 80s I know that most things we will all have are seated before we're 10 and I'm curious you know I can ask you before you were 10 I'll know you remember you know from a way to 10 but whether as an actor you have things that looking back now sort of seated what you're interested in as an actor you know the the early stuff that that's stuck with you now you're like still that's probably why I like this or why I like that. I actually think that I wish that was true for me but I had no it was or even if it was it wasn't like at the front of my brain I never thought before 10 that I was going to be an actor at all like that I wouldn't say that was a single thought that across my mind up until the point of being about 16, 17 but I think that doesn't mean that I'm not referencing that time and I think you learn a lot about or you make certain decisions about how we function as human beings between the ages of not and and 10 and I think maybe growing up in Ireland has impacted that I just think oftentimes most people that I know are often hiding their true state of how they're actually feeling and I think that's kind of something that I'm drawn to in performance. It's interesting as I read a lot I read a lot about you in the analytics and it's interesting you know what the throughlines are and you know what you've said over the course of your career and so like that and that's something that's come up a lot is your your curiosity about the character you know you said it's religious, you said it's meditative, you know, the process of getting to know the character. So I'm curious, you know, when that started and how that has evolved. Well, it's like, it's religious purely because I think that there is just kind of this blind faith that you have to put in yourself because I don't work like in like the school of like method acting or, and I know that means different things to different people. It's kind of, what I mean by religious or meditative is in an like attempting, I hope that comes across not as a self-serious because it's not that it's just the closest thing that I can describe to something where it's like, I don't have a fixed process. So it ends up being this blind faith, which sometimes I think is what religion is to some people, I'm not a religious person, but I do believe in this kind of active arch that happens for actors that is kind of specific in our form. It's like, you're using your body the whole time. That's the instrument that you get to use. And you're minding your curiosity and your theories on how human beings are. And I think that's what I mean by this kind of religious act or meditative. It's like you spend a lot of time in a hotel room looking at the lines, looking at the lines and hoping for some sort of divine inspiration. But actually, while you're looking for that, you're constantly percolating or sniffing around certain suspicions that you have around a character or why they are a certain way. And then you get into it and you just hope that those, the like the acting gods arrive when they're needed, you know. Yeah. I mean, the other thing I found such thing about, you know, seeing the evolution of the way you talked about acting, the course of your career is, you know, you're somebody and we run into this a lot, you know, at that stage. And as that something called the actors podcast, we talked to all the actors about their process. That's a very thorny question. And the thing I see from you is, it's something that you have, you've said, you can't really articulate. And I really should. It's such an internal thing. So, I'm curious, I'm not going to ask you to, I'm not going to say you can articulate and then ask you to articulate it. But I'm just going to write. You think that that is why I think it's hard to articulate. I think it's hard to articulate because it's hard to because it's kind of durational. It's not like there's a junction in the prep process where I'm like, I do this two months out. It's kind of this because also the time that you have in the lead up to a film totally varies depending on schedule or what you're coming on. What's proceeding and et cetera. Also, if there's a specific skill that you have to learn, that's always great because you can like exchange, like you can put all of your attention towards that and it kind of removes a layer of anxiety or something because you feel like you're doing something. And I think I like to just generally feel busy in my life. But sometimes the prep process is just about sitting with yourself and waiting for, waiting for little hooks to emerge that you feel like you can hang the character up on. And that just takes time and sometimes you can find more than others. And again, that sounds vague. It's just like that's why I think it's hard because I don't think it's like, I don't think acting as an academic exercise. It's not something that you can read 100 books and suddenly know how to do it because it's so different for each actor. Like and I imagine that like for all of the actors that I admire most in the world, I'd say you couldn't draw any sort of through line with any of them in terms of how they prepare. It's such an individual exercise. That is the thing we find is you get 10,000 questions. That is an answer to the same question. Yeah. Yeah. Stuff like this. I'm Chris, but the phrasing of, you know, stuff to hang those to hang on. You know, I'm curious how you've honed your ability to recognize again, what's helpful? What is worth hanging and what is a path you maybe do? Well, it's like if it moved me. If it's something that I find like I have a theory about line or there's a certain line and a script that you're just like that feels like a cornerstone of how this person functions in the world. Like there's a line that older Lionel says at the end of the film, which the sentiment of the line is essentially that he discovered about himself that he didn't actually like the act of singing. It was about recording music. It was about processing that. And that told me so much about a character because it's actually suddenly it's not about he's prescribed. He's been everybody says that he is a beautiful voice, but what he's learned about himself is that he actually wants to listen. So that tells me so much about that was a hook for me with Lionel, for example, where it's like, oh, you're playing somebody now who enjoys listening, whether he does or not at that age, I'm not fully sure, but what it tells me is that he's comfortable. He is intuitive about other people because I think people who are good listeners are good at reading people. He's comfortable in silence. He's not he doesn't want to be front and center in the world, but that doesn't make him any less remarkable to me. Other hooks are just like, if like it often kind of unravels from there. So say if you get a hook that somebody's like listening, then you start thinking about like if you're comfortable listening, I think it generally means that you're able to be pretty still, very able to absorb things. You're not trying to inform the conversation that is being held by imposing yourself on us. So then if you're thinking about stillness, then you're thinking about how he might physically, is it about that he is it that he doesn't want to draw attention to himself? Sometimes that's through sometimes that's not. So then he might try to take up less space and kind of that's something that would maybe that thought might not arrive for like two weeks, but it will just be normally a moment in a hotel room or in a conversation with a director where you suddenly go, oh, this will suddenly start just like letting my mind kind of snowball towards certain conclusions that whether people agree with or not, I have to have something that I can play and that feels playable to me. I feel like I just watched the yeah, that's kind of an invitation and my mind works in that regard. I'm so big. I'm always very curious. And again, this is probably even harder to articulate. So that asks you to articulate it, but yeah, when you think about the different ways in that people have and the way that you specifically have and you're somebody who does a lot of prep and you like to think about and stuff like that, but then you get closer and closer and closer to like a director calling action and then you have to work. What is the way that you would be able to describe like what you do between action and cut? You know, like what are you doing? In that moment when all the homework has to become real work. I don't know what I'm doing between not in a kind of like sometimes I remember it sometimes I don't. It's oftentimes it's like you're kind of you you I feeling that I like having when I'm working like on set on the floor between action and cut is that like you're kind of sniffing around a feeling. You're kind of like a dog marking something out and you're but you're also trying to switch off the kind of intellectual part of your brain that is going like oh that's good that's bad that feels correct that doesn't you're just trying to like put yourself presently in a situation you're trying to look a if you're working with another actor in that moment you're trying to pick up you're trying to absorb them see what they're making you feel and then your cut is called all the verbal come in you'll have a discussion or not he'll tell you to go again and then you're trying to switch off the part of your brain that's like saying what does that mean? If you're saying go just go again does that mean that he doesn't like it? He wants me to do something totally different or does he like it and stay in that ballpark? So you're trying to like explode all of those thoughts as they're happening because they're not useful. But yeah I my answer will probably change in two or three years time but it's like if you can just kind of be curiously sniffing around the edges of a feeling and it's moving you or it's moving somebody else then that's a place where I feel happy when I'm working but it's not like I don't have like a pre-action ritual and normally be pretty quiet before once I get to set generally. Something I've seen you say that I really enjoyed is you use the word pragmatic actors that to be pragmatic because all these things we're discussing right now are great but then sometimes you have 20 minutes to shoot something you you have to do it and then does that become more of like a does that sort of push you? Well it's it's it's involved in some time to feel like you're in like pressure can be like look there's no worse feeling than when you feel like you've run out of time I'm on a scene but there is also no better feeling than when you haven't had enough time to shoot a scene but you're really happy with how it's you've got to be pragmatic in the sense that like your process is all well and go but if it's impacting the fact that you're not making the day then the film is going to be shit so you've got to have a kind of pragmatism or be comfortable working in a team environment where it's like if we don't get this we might have to take the entire crew in on a Saturday and not that that that will happen from time to time and that's not a bad thing because actually sometimes you will want to come in on the weekend because you haven't got it but you don't want the reason that you're not coming you're coming in on the weekend is because you have wasted time so it's a fine balance to strike where it's like you've got to take the time that you need to do your job but try and make that as short as you want to do it. as possible and also make sure that that is in conversation with actually the practicalities of the day that's in front of you. Yeah. It's almost like the unspoken part of a part of being a good actor is like not making everybody else's job harder. No, because you don't want to be the problem. You don't want to be the problem. No, you don't want to be. I think that's just a good rule of thumb for life in general. You still want to be a thumbs up. It's an actor specific thing. It's not be the problem. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, another thing I sort of, and again, this is all just coming from seeing the way you have talked about acting over the years. And this was, I think this was like 2020 right around. Number of people is something that you said was at that point, you're still working out what kind of actor you want to be. Yeah. So I'm curious, here we are five years later, what is your relationship to that sentence? I was talking to somebody about this last night. And I do, I think it's the first time that I've been asked a question from before that I actually feel like I have an answer that is related to like, I have an idea about the actor that I want to be now a little bit more than I did then. Or more so what I think, I don't know, I had to phrase this properly. So actually, I could be just talking bullshit, but I do think that I've watched, I had the privilege of watching and being face to face with some of my favorite performances ever. I have, I've happened to be in films with people like Jesse and Andrew and Josh and Sursher and Emily Watson and these giants. And I think I'm learning about like the fact that it's possible to actually show a lot of range within something that is that can sometimes feel similar. And I think it's like you look at painters and you look at novelists and you look at poets and directors and musicians. And a lot of those aforementioned artists have a very specific style. And I think I like the style with which I work because it feels like that's the closest thing I can be to being truthful. But I'm not necessarily interested in working outside in. I don't think putting on a funny walk is something that is indicative of range. I think it's something that I think I'm curious about in performance, but I'm actually like, I'm interested in kind of hopefully like building a career where like your characters are kind of an anthology of people who you could see communicating with each other. Because actually I think it's all coming from the same place. And I think that there's massive opportunities to display range within, but it just might look slightly differently. It might require an audience to look a little bit closer or might just be something that's not interested to them because I don't think like a lot of the films that I make are necessarily like easy watches. So if that's what I'm kind of reconciling the fact that I'm probably not the actor for them if that's what they're looking for. I think an easy light breezy. Yeah, I don't think so. I think that's fair to say. It's interesting because I came across, I think there's a review of this film or I'm not sure what their view was, but they describe you as I found this sentence very interesting as our premier young translator of male emotion and I'm curious how aware you are of what the audience's perception is of like your thing. And that's that. Yeah, I think so. I think how do you feel about what you're thinking? I am aware of the thing that like that they think it is or that it is to them. It's not something that comes. It's tied to that conversation. That's just clearly what I am motivated is to do as an actor. It's an amazing thing to have somebody say that in a review or whatever it was, but it's also like if if a fraction of that is true, then I think that there's a. It's a very artistic responsibility or it's one that I feel it's like people that I'm playing are people that I know they're me, they're versions of me, they're versions of my imagination, they're all and that if that like that's I feel a certain responsibility to continue in that vein until I feel like that's empty until I'm bored of that. I'm not bored of those people. I also just think it's interesting like we live in a world where it's like easy to just like we find it hard to sit through a two hour film. We find it hard to like speak at length about things anymore. Everything is kind of being reduced and shortened. Our attention span is kind of going down to like 15 seconds per video. It's like you know what I mean? So it's like I think it's sometimes easy to like and it's not I don't feel it's like necessarily just with me. I think we like to kind of compartmentalize our his like oh that's the thing that they do or that's the thing that that X actor does and I think I ultimately don't have control over that. I see it both as a kind of like compliment and depending on the tone reductive in certain instances but learning that that's it actually does bother me because I don't feel like I have a choice or I'm not really interested in the alternative. It's like this is what I want to do. This is how I want to act for the foreseeable until I get bored of myself. It's just again a very fair thing you know like it's chasing the things that interest you. Yeah. I guess that eventually becomes your thing but it doesn't mean you're doing that. But it's also like so what like what do you have to like what is the thing you want to say as an actor or any kind of artist and how do you want to say it and this is just how I want to say it at the moment. Absolutely. You mentioned him briefly. We we we not too long ago had your all of the strangers close to our Andrew Scott on the show and you know he was he was talking about and a similar thing of the things he is interested in in that camp is he's drawn to stories that are about love and all the various he's sassets. He's a great example of like something somebody that I think is like incredibly chameleonic as a performer but also like he's painting variations of the same thing and I'm so wildly interested in that. You know I think he's like he's kind of performing a study of love like it's like a there's he's got a gallery full of performances that are thematically I think linked and I think he's is a good example of kind of what I was trying to articulate a minute ago. Oh absolutely. And I'm just going to say look at your resume so far and I think I even touched on this and the past is that you are drawn to characters that there's it's about love but maybe in a way it's not yeah what you're looking for in a movie from you know about love I'm curious what what the theme is there and again. The theme is there there are parts of this that are out of your control but yeah you're still finding that. I think there's so I find I like love love like I think it's the like thing that most human beings I think I've said this before most human beings regardless of like what walk of life you are lucky enough to experience it at one point or another some people are into that's incredibly upsetting but for the most part we have that and it's I think regardless of who you are in the world we can all remember that feeling the act of like falling in love being in love feeling a lot of deep and all of these things. But I think there's something that I like to have in kind of opposition to that which is like a lot oftentimes people or I wonder if people find it easier to love other people than they do themselves. I think that's an interesting place to have a character and I think that's often true a lot of people it's easier to kind of spend your energy extending it towards somebody else while still not really being able to figure out yourself and I think that's there's definitely a through line would say somebody like Lionel or Harry. Will's different will is kind of more complicated and so far as it's like he's just kind of got a little bit of my genius energy going on but Conno would be in that world too. I'm curious when it comes to the idea of I'm sure this is something that on both this film and every film pretty much you've done so far is the question of chemistry and what it means. You had the chance this blue we have, this your sound has been in development for a long time. So you've gotten to know Joshua Conner over a long amount of time and you've gone close as friends and I'm sure that has made the chemistry question a little easier but I am always curious when we talk about chemistry how much enjoying someone's company in real life at the end of the day matters because you are an actor and we've talked to people who have talked about chemistry as like it's not about what it is in real life. It's part of the job. Yeah. What is the mix there for you? I think I've been very lucky. Like I can't give you a I can't give you like a test. I can just say that like I've working with Josh and Jesse and Andrew and Sersh and Daisy. They happen to be people that I adore spending time with outside it. So that's why I don't think I'm like able to give you good answer and that because I feel consistently that the people that I end up having to play with on screen are people that I love in real life. I kind of would be curious. Like I would love not because I think that would also be hell but like I would love to know what it feels like to not get on with somebody because then I think they way to put this to the test is like to cross those really. But I'm sure that will happen at some point in my life and but I do think it's true that like. I've definitely worked with people that I haven't been as super close with. And I do think that the chemistry might potentially suffer as a result. But I don't think that that is the B all in and off. Because I do think that there is something kind of chemical that goes on as well. You know, it's just like some people when a camera is on them and it looks like they're looking at each other. Whatever's happening, it's working. And I don't know if it's something that you can home. I also think I've heard actors from friends of mine talk about the fact that they loved people in real life and there was just no chemistry on screen. So I just think it's like, look at the draw. And I'd be curious to know how respond if I felt like there wasn't of the chemistry wasn't translating on screen. Like then maybe there is something you can do. I'm not sure. Yeah. Well, we'll have to talk. We'll have to talk when it happens. Yeah. I feel like I'm up here in the nightmare with another actor. I'll be like, look, dude, this is actually just really fine. Yeah. Sort of piggybacking off the long development of this movie. Because like this is a long time. You know, you had a lot of time to think about this, this, this film. And you know, as we establish, you're someone who thinks about it. Pretty deeply. Have you had any chance to sort of sit and think about like how the performance might have been different if you had done it when you first read it? And like, what does that tell you about this journey of like the actor you've become? You know, like how would this have been different when you read it in your your mid 20s to now is like, what does that tell you about where you have of all this an actor? I, oh, that's a good question. I don't know if I think I probably would have felt more relaxed weirdly making it younger. I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing. I think I definitely feel more experienced. I feel more confident in myself. I saw somebody the other day about this. I feel more confident in myself as an actor, but I feel like my confidence is low. Lower now than I was then. Does that make sense? It's extremely, extremely relatable. It's like, I feel like I'm better at my job because I have more experience, but I also feel like way more shaky in terms of my relationships to the industry. And I think that's just like the ship part of this job is like the more you're out there, the more you're open to. And it does all kind of double back to like the whole social media comment. It's like the more you're there, the more eyes that are on you, the more that there's people talking. And if you're not like super, super, super like thick skinned, that creeps its way in and you lose confidence. But on the other side, that I know that I've worked with, I think some of the best directors in the world, some of the best actors in the world. So no question. I feel like I've definitely improved since then. But I would love to kind of get into the like happy medium of like the naivety of being young in this industry and the experience that I feel like I've gained now. I mean, I can't tell you how many people we've talked to who, you know, and answer to a similar question is they sort of say the best actors they've ever worked with is like a child actor because they just like exactly. I was just at that in an interview like prior to the day. I've been so lucky to work with like some incredible child actors and like Jacobean, Livian and Frankie and and Bodie and like I'm so jealous of them sometimes. So so jealous because they just they're not corrupted by anything. And it's like I love my job. I don't like this industry if that makes sense. And believe me. Yeah, I feel like a lot of people probably feel like it's the whole thing with being an artist is you don't want to work in an interview or it's like you don't want to put an industry on it. It's not a weird thing. It's like an industry that is required. It fundamentally requires you to be a sales person on top of it. And that's a massive, the important thing. I want people to go to theaters and see these films because it's like an industry that is actually under like incredible threat at the moment. Like in terms of how we I assume like to go see films in a theater in the dark. And that requires me to do a part of the job that I want to do. But I also feel like it takes a lot out of the tank as well. So it's trying to reconcile the best like navigate that moving forward. And it's like an amazing team of people around me that I've worked with since it all started. Who like I feel very lucky that they know me very well. And it's kind of constantly be like a situation of like just shifting. We got all post slightly so that like feel like I can go and do my job and not finish a press tour and be. I feel like I'm living with a panic attack. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, that's a work in progress. Yeah, exactly. I do want to, you know, as we sort of come to our time here. I was just watching this very incredible video. I think it was a baggy organ calling Joseph Quinn while he was in the middle of a Beatles makeup test. I think it was the first time he saw him. So I just want to, I'm just curious if you've had that experience of manning a test. Yes. And what that seeing that was like. It's mad, dude. It's like it's such an exciting like or a deal. You know, like it's four films. It's the greatest bond to ever do us. I get to play somebody who I am like, I've always admired. But as each day goes by, I just think he's like, you could count on one hand how many people have influenced the world as much as he has. His relationship to his art is so inspiring to me. We've done the camera tests. It's fucking scary. It's so exciting. I'm working again with like Harris and Barry and Joe, like actors that I really, really admire. And we're like stepping into something that people will have such intense opinions about who these people are or whether we should even be making them in the first place, but I can tell you from the inside of us that we are approaching it with like the greatest love and respect and rigor that I definitely have rehearsed for this longer than I've ever rehearsed for anything else in my entire life already. So we're putting in the hard yards. Well, I think many people listening are now. I'm incredibly excited. That's coming, that's coming down the road. So as we sort of were coming to our end of our time here, I am doing to ask something I saw you say at the very beginning of your career. This isn't even before you know you had started working. I think you went to go see, um, call me by your name. Yeah. And you mentioned that that Timothy Shilamay's performance kind of terrified you because you saw a song. So good. Yeah, I remember distinctly that feeling. Yeah. I'm curious if you've felt anything similar to that recently. You know, now that you are a working actor and it's a completely different feeling of being terrified by no points. Have you seen a bar be raised that you're like, oh, as an actor now that is working, I have to maybe go up or is that some, do you have a relationship to that? I think you do. I think just like, I remember seeing Renata in "Worse Person in the World" and feeling something similarly. I know it sounds reductive, but I do, but I was talking to my friend the other day. Like, I do fundamentally believe that my best friends are the best actors in the world. Like Andrew Scott, Jesse Buckley, Sourisha, Dave, I just think that I'm so- That's a realist. Like, that's a crazy list. I truly just believe like, I think like watching Andrew's performance and all of us strangers. Jesse and Josh and Josh in this film are so magnetic and Jesse and Hamlet and like, I'm not just saying it because they're my friends. I actually like, in terms of whose films I'm most excited about coming out each year, it just so happens to be people who are like hanging out with, but that aside, I remember seeing Renata in "Worse Person in the World" and being like, "Fuck, that is like, I'm so excited to see sentimental value." Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I could not agree real. But I think you're right. That list, with you on it, is just a, when I think of who I'm, when I think of who's exciting to see now, or their name makes me excited. Yeah. That's a hell of a list. Well, yeah. Thanks. Now, I just wanted to tell you something that happened to me recently, as driving with my wife and under pressure, on the radio, and I was driving and I just happened to note, I look over it, I know that she's, she's crying and she tells me that she cannot hear that song anymore without thinking of after some and it's truly stuck with us. I'm curious if that's something you've ever been. It's funny. I was just doing an interview downstairs with her kind of like, showing little scenes from things that I've done before and I haven't seen after someone in a second or haven't seen in a couple of years. And it's so well-directed and that song feels like so perfectly placed. I relate to your wife. I think it's like, I find it tough to watch that when I was in it. And I was like, I should feel kind of at least somewhat immune to the fact that, but it's not, it's sometimes like what Charlotte did with that section has kind of, like if you like after someone you think about after some, you're probably going to be thinking about that section. So your wife isn't probably just thinking about that scene, she's thinking about that film and those people and that's again a testament to the great Charlotte Wells. One of the most impactful scenes I've ever. It's crazy. Well, this was fascinating. I know we got to some places that are hard to put into words. Yeah, no, I hope it doesn't all sound vague and wish you washy, but if it does, it probably can create a fast-needing. This was an absolute pleasure. Hopefully we could talk again soon, but thanks so much for being here. Thanks very much. Thanks as always to our brilliant producer, Jamie Muffet. End to the whole team at Backstage. Samantha Scherlock, Mark Stinson, Caitlin Watkins, and of course, Casey Howe. Visit Backstage.com and don't forget you can subscribe to Backstage with code envelope at checkout for a free trial. 100% free you simply cannot beat that. For more exclusive content, find us on Facebook and Twitter at in the envelope and subscribe, share, and leave a comment. Would you interview next? To let us know, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time for another peek in the envelope. (upbeat music)