-Our next guest is an Emmy-nominated actor
you know from the show "Normal People"
and the film "The Lost Daughter."
He stars in "Aftersun,"
which is in select theaters October 21st.
Let's take a look.
-Good.
[ Billiard balls clacking ] Well done.
♪♪
-So, what's your sister's name?
-Sophie. -Oh, nice.
-I'm her dad, though, actually.
-Oh. Sorry, mate. I just thought --
-That's okay.
♪♪
It's a nice hotel, eh? -Oh, it's alright.
-Please welcome to the show, Paul Mescal, everybody!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
I'm so happy to have you here.
-Thanks very much. -Congratulations on this film.
It's a very beautiful film about a young father and his daughter.
And a lot of it is unsaid.
I would say that is not a dialogue-heavy film.
When you were reading through the script the first time,
did you appreciate exactly how special it was going to be?
-Yeah, it's one of those scripts that you read and you're like,
"How do I get to the top
of the pile of actors that are going to want it?"
So, yeah, I was very aware of the kind of -- the fact
that it was kind of nonverbal in how it presents itself.
And, yeah, I just very quickly auditioned for Charlie
and here I am talking about it.
-You play a young father in the film.
You're not a young father in real life.
And you actually took
a rehearsal vacation with your costar.
-Yeah, Yeah. We landed in Turkey kind of two weeks
before the shoot,
and I asked Frankie's mom and dad if I could,
like, be her pretend dad for two weeks.
And so, yeah, we hung out.
-We were the kind of parents
who were like, "Yep." -They were like, "Please."
No, no, no. They were great.
Like, we swam in the sea,
ate pancakes, swam in the pool, lots of swimming.
And we taught her how to play pool.
-She's fantastic. It's also her first film.
Is it -- How is it to have a scene partner,
especially one in a -- in a film
where the connection is so intense, who is...
I mean, I would just assume a natural at it?
-Total natural.
It's, like, frightening. You're like, "Whoa.
If you knew how good
you are right now, it would be, like, shocking."
But, yeah, I feel like with young actors
and people starting out, you're kind of harnessing
or they're holding on to this thing.
Whereas with older actors you can kind of...
talk acting out of existence,
here she's just so pure
and full of life.
And it's -- Yeah, it was... -Is it contagious?
Did you find yourself going back
to sort of the roots of, like, what's natural about acting?
-Yeah, well, she just surprises you.
She would do something, like, in a scene where you're, like,
"Whoa, I wish I thought of that."
She's just in it all the time, and I just can't wait for people
to see her performance in the film.
-This is an exciting time.
You're in a couple of movies right now.
"God's Creatures," as well.
I have to ask a question, because you are shucking oysters
a great deal in this film very believably so.
Was that a skill you had before you took this part?
-It was -- No, that was not a skill that I had.
-That's a dangerous one to learn
because I feel like there's no shortcuts with shucking oysters.
-No, there's -- there's no shortcuts. Yeah.
Fodhla, our wonderful producer,
her brother is an oyster farmer.
So I was like, "I'm going to be a proper actor
and learn how to do this."
And went out on the water with John Michael
and he taught me how to do it, yeah.
-Are you pretty good now? -Eh, middling, yeah.
Yeah. -Thank you for your honesty.
[ Laughter ]
I want to talk about -- you had, in early life,
a parallel track of both acting --
You were in acting school, but you were also playing...
I guess this isn't technically rugby.
This is Gaelic?
-Gaelic football, yeah. -Gaelic football?
How would you describe, for those of us who are maybe not up
on the latest? -Gaelic football?
-Yeah, Gaelic football.
-Chaos. -Chaos.
-Pure chaos. It's basically like a mix
between rugby and soccer,
but is just...brutal.
-Yeah. -Well, rugby is pretty brutal,
but, like, you represent like your parish
or where you come from.
It's, like, nonprofessional.
So it's like very much like... very spirited, I would say.
-So it's not that there's a different rule.
It's just like people are maybe more prone to fight?
-Yeah, yeah.
It depends on which town you're playing against.
-Gotcha. Did you --
Did you play for a good town? Were you guys good at it?
-Yeah. I liked my town. [ Laughter ]
-I meant good at the sport.
Were you a nice place to live? [ Laughter ]
-Yeah. Yeah, I played for Maynooth and...
and Kildare, my county.
This is like a geography lesson.
-Gotcha. -For anybody who doesn't know,
that's Kildare. -Seems like mouth guard
is a pretty important part of that I'm assuming.
-Yeah, very necessary.
-And was it -- were you prone to injury,
or do the people who play Gaelic football get...?
-Yeah, I broke my nose and my jaw.
I broke my jaw two days
before starting my final year in drama school.
So I was like, "I'm going to probably give it a break
for the last year."
I found out that they don't really go hand-in-hand.
You can't really act with a broken jaw.
-When you showed up to acting school with a broken jaw,
were you honest that this happened during Gaelic football?
-Because they say you're not allowed to play any sport
because it's like bad for your, like, body and stuff,
and I was like, "Yeah, it'll be fine."
Go in, and I -- face-to-face with my, like, acting teachers
and they're like, "What's wrong?"
And I was like, "Well, this is so weird.
I got mugged at work.
[ Laughter ] Yeah. A nightmare."
And so I spent the four weeks in rehearsals
just kind of like rehearsing like this.
Yeah, yeah.
-Was Gaelic football sad to see you go?
Did you have a skill at it?
Were they like, "we lost one of our good ones
to the acting craft"? [ Laughter ]
-I hope that's what they say. Yeah.
I hope that's what they say. -You know,
for matters of this, let's just all agree
that they're still talking about you in the pubs.
The one that got away. -Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah.
-We were talking backstage, you know,
because you -- "Normal People," which is so wonderful --
and you actually haven't done
any one of these talk shows in person.
You did a bunch of them on Zoom during the...
-Yeah. -Was it --
'Cause it was one of our first pandemic shows.
My wife and I watched it.
Was it cool to make a show like that,
that obviously worst possible reason
for people to connect with it,
but everybody was looking for shows,
and I feel like that was one a lot of people found.
-Totally and, like, these things are wonderful,
but they're kind of stressful a little bit.
So getting to do it a kind of a year
further into it is fantastic.
And for it to be "Normal People"
the thing that people still talk about
that I'm really, really proud of is...
I'm very grateful for that.
-Yeah, well, it was a really special show
and it's so great to meet you in person.
Thank you so much for being here, Paul.
-Thanks for having me. Thank you so much.
-Paul Mescal, everybody.
"Aftersun" is in select theaters is October 21st,
and "God's Creatures" is in theaters Friday.
We'll be right back to music from 5 Seconds of Summer.