Paul Mescal looks back at career rise: 'Rosy in garden'

Paul Mescal has had a stellar career in a few years, which includes a nod from Academy Awards for his film Aftersun.

Reflecting on the period, he told GQ that he was a completely different person from the time he entered the industry.

“I look back at myself at 24, he’s a different guy. Everything was still so ideal in my head. I was so deeply uncynical at that age." 

“I don’t mean happier in the broad sense, but it was kind of the montage sequence of everything’s rosy in the garden," he added.

The 28-year-old continued, "But also, the other side of it has always been available to me. I understand the psychological landscape of the characters that I play, and that isn’t just from reading the script, it’s from inside you somewhere.”

Describing his hunger for work, he said, “My agent refers to me openly as a psychopath when it comes to work. I feel an intense desire to have this forever,” adding, “I want this to never stop. So with that comes a kind of neurosis of control.”

On his forthcoming film Gladiator II, Paul said its success at the box office would be overall good for the industry.

“I know ‘Gladiator’ is by far and away the biggest thing I’ve done in terms of a public-facing responsibility and the amount of people that are going to get to it.”

“But I think I’ve now built in personal infrastructure where I know the map of what I want to be as an actor. So it’s not the be-all and end-all,” he concluded.