Paul Mescal on Aftersun, Normal People and why he's drawn to characters with complicated inner lives

how are you good how are you I'm not too bad congratulations on the film thanks very much when you read the script what was it about it it was like to put it kind of like plainly it was just such a beautifully constructed script like as its own thing I was like this is pretty much close to perfect and then obviously through chats with Charlie our director I was like she's special and I want to work with her I mean I should be clear for people who don't know it's it's sort of hers her story yeah it's like a as Charlie puth it's like a work of what is it like oh it's out of fiction Auto fiction yes thank you I didn't know but I just I said yeah she will put it much more elegantly I agree yeah sweet did you talk to her a little bit about what her father was what did she tell you about what her father was like I think we kept that pretty separate really yeah like we treated Callum as if it was the character on the page and that was important to me to approach it that way because I would feel a certain pressure if it was about attempting a kind of accuracy that was related to Charlie's father or not so it was totally kind of here's Callum on the page and this is the way we're going to approach it I wouldn't know much about acting okay uh so I have some acting questions for you great you don't have children yourself I do not um there's a real tenderness from you in this film towards the daughter in the film how do you get there I don't look at it as binary is that obviously I'm like I need to really invest in the idea of what fatherhood would potentially mean to me but then half of the battle is just falling in love with who you're working with and that was the easiest thing to do with Frankie she just I like you just fall in love with her immediately she's fun she's an incredible actor and she does these like wonderful things that just allow you in how do you build that relationship with her then we arrived like two weeks before filming started yeah I would spend two weeks just kind of hanging out with Frankie and taking her down to get crabs or jumping in the sea swimming in the pool playing pool um and just took the pressure or took the focus away from the finished product of like the film and built a trust between us and her parents were so sound about it like they just let me play dad for a little bit and then she'd go back to a real family in the evening it's lovely because because to me I mean the film was about is about so much but one of the things that I thought the film depicted really well I don't know if you can relate to this there is that moment in all of us when we're growing up that we realize that our fathers or our mothers are not Gods yeah they're not superheroes you know what I mean they are people who are struggling with life the same the way that all of us are you know what I mean yeah totally I think that's what I find so upsetting about the film when I watch it because it you do like you just hit the nail on the head it's like at what point and I think of like memories of that it's like I remember catching my dad smoking like 11 and being like heartbroken and then suddenly you grow up and you're like 18 19 20 and you're like I'm gonna have a cigarette and that's fine and you're like rules of course they're supposed to change it's like there's kind of like a a purity I think with being a kid and actually that Obsessed the upset that I felt when I saw my dad smoking was to do with was rooted in a feeling of Love yeah so and there's kind of a like a purity and a kind of Simplicity to that which is beautiful but also when you get older you're like oh I was probably a little bit harsh on that at that moment I threw my father's cigarettes out there I broke them up me too thinking that he wasn't gonna ever be able to buy another box I bet he was a matter of he was yeah yeah because my father was very mad at me about that too yeah yeah but it's an important moment yeah for sure you know a friend of mine told me the other day she was saying that they were they were watching Jeopardy no Jeopardy I've been explained Jeopardy to me it's like it's like a quiz show in the States but instead of asking like well this is you for example right like what is uh normal people oh what's a show that aired on blah blah they'll say this show aired on blah blah blah and the answer is what is normal people so they say it's a game of answers and questions so give me an example like uh this barnyard animal yeah pecks at feed and is used in uh Kentucky Fried restaurants and the answer would be what is chicken that's right okay why what's the what is about we were answering you're giving a question instead of an answer gotcha it's a game of answers and questions right no it makes more sense yeah [Laughter] she was watching Jeopardy with her father and her father got her something wrong all right and she said she said I just thought my all of a sudden this idea I had of my father is being the smartest man in the world but all he did was just get something wrong yeah maybe I was happy I mentioned normal people just then because it did make me think about some of the other projects you've done so in the you know in in this film after sun and then your character in normal people we were talking about this on the way here that there's um there's a complicated inner life and how they express things on the outside isn't always how they feel on the inside what is it about that that excites you as an actor or interest you as an actor I feel like when I watch stuff that moves me film theater or even music anything I'm attracted to the idea of like restraint you have to explain that one to me so like when you see a character like column or Connell for example in normal people when the filmmakers or the script doesn't explain to you what and why they're feeling a certain way and it requires a kind of restraint from the filmmakers and also from a performance side of things to kind of show don't tell do you know what I mean it's about kind of trusting an audience to be smart and with you and kind of front-footed in their response to what they're seeing and to lean in and engage and I think that's when I see stuff that really moves me is when I haven't been told how to feel and I think maybe that's or I believe that's true of normal people as a show and after someone I feel like they're in a kind of similar yet incredibly different wheelhouse you know yeah it must be hard as an actor again I wouldn't know much about acting totally because in after sun your character is I mean I almost don't want to tell people but I can say that he is suffering from what seems like a deep depression yeah um he is which is the most heartbreaking of all he's trying to help himself yeah what's like when you see characters fighting for something like he's not resolved to a sadness or a disposition like he's fighting against it there's something kind of like Willie Lowman esque in in his like a nice being is like he's in like I don't think Willie loman's like an excellent father but one of my favorite things about column is that for everything that's going on behind the scenes I think he's an excellent father I think there's moments in the film where he messes up but Charlie's construction of column is so wonderfully smart because I feel like we've seen many neglectful absent single fathers in a binary yeah totally they're they're like one thing and column as a single father I feel like he jumps between jobs but he the thing that he is best of is being a dad to Sophie which is brilliant but as an actor when you deal with that restraint like when you have this like so your character is and this is just you as an actor yeah Paul's an actor you have to be very quiet in your you have to we have to be able to sort of barely be able to perceive there's something dark on the inside of you or something that there's you're struggling with but there are moments as an actor where you get to yell very briefly you need to yell spit really let it out yeah what are those moments how do you approach those as an actor I feel like that is the restraint that I'm talking about it's like it's like holding the audience like like a Tice like keeping them on the edge of what what they're encountering yeah I feel like how many times have you seen actors like screamed their way through a film and if you looked at one of the Clips in isolation you could be like that's really powerful and moving but if the film or the TV show or the play has 90 percent of that performance being that it doesn't move you so it's like what to make it specific to Carl and what I loved about that script was that there's kind of a high pressure element to it it's like column has to show his daughter whenever he's with his daughter he's got to be a kind of Pillar of Strength and has got to give off no kind of perception of being on well or being upset you can't so then you look at the script and you're like okay I've got three or four moments where you get to let the audience in and that's there's a couple of examples in the film but there are moments when as an actor is exciting and scary because you're like if I don't land these beats yeah the audience won't understand yeah a little footage of you being the of the character being his true self okay or his true self or like private like a public versus private version of the column you're very thoughtful about acting I don't think that's a an odd thing to say no I don't know it's just a nice complex well I I but I would I would talk to actors who would you know I sure you know I show up and do my job and I go home at the end I feel like that's probably self-protective though maybe maybe I don't know maybe so yeah yeah I think you got a great respect for it yeah wasn't your father it wasn't yeah he was an actor yeah are you the teacher and actor yeah what kind of stuff did he do he took the first play I saw it was like um eight or nine or in that kind of bracket there's a play called Jeffrey Bernard is unwell and uh I didn't know this it wasn't going to be just my dad on stage as my dad you know like just like this dad's gonna say someone else's words and it's gonna look like him but he was wearing like costumes and like heavy makeup and like fake beards and stuff so I was like it took me like 20 minutes 30 minutes to be like mine's dog gonna come in yeah to the play that's lovely though it's nice that is lovely yeah and then that must be the reason you got into it yes and no I think like because I kind of I watched those plays and I was like interested but then I was like that's not for me I want to play Sport and oh yeah I don't know in Ireland I feel like there's less of a trajectory of like you can be an actor for your job like it wasn't my dad's job he acted so like kind of in his own time but it was only like at the end of secondary school that I kind of pivoted and I was like I think I might not make a go of this the question the question I have about that is when you are really um as thoughtful as you are and it means so much to you as you have you told me that you are remind me your co-star's name again I'm so sorry uh Frankie corio who's 12 yeah and starting out because she yeah but I've been really obsessed with the idea of The Beginner's mind recently like what you know right yeah so do you as a trained actor now yeah learn anything from her as an actor starting out not to her specifically like not as good she is and all that stuff but like the fact that she's starting out like her beginner mentality yeah I don't know about that because I don't like I suppose I'd be approaching it for maybe a different perspective in that I very quickly probably when I was flying over I was like it's going to be really hard working with a kid and but I'm very quickly I was like no Frankie is is a child but she's an actor like she's ready to go like it's it was really phenomenal but maybe maybe what I did learn from the beginners point of view was that there's kind of a it's like a factory reset you know it's like she's at the beginning so there's no kind of Hobbits or tricks yeah that's kind of what I mean yeah I think so and also I just love there's like moments in the film where we'd be because we didn't get to shoot actually a lot a lot because of the Child hours and we're only allowed to have her like in front of camera for I think four hours a day yeah right right so you'd spend a lot of the days like setting up the shots and then there's like a certain scene and like a mud bath where I'm apologizing to her like without any suppose I'm apologizing to her for something yeah and it's pretty drastic what has happened and Frankie and Sophie kind of merged at this moment where Frankie would hate when anything would be sad which was kind of great because I would try as Callum to not show her that I was sad at any moment oh yeah but there was a moment when he's particularly like I'm sorry for what happened last night yeah that's Frankie would just like refuse to go there so she just starts like smearing mud on me yeah and totally kind of dissociating but also such a jet like beautiful gesture and I remember my heart was just like is devastating in the in the best way and that's something that I think is a testament to her as an actor but also to her as a beginner you know it's like pure instinct to just go I'm not comfortable with this conversation so I'm gonna divert my attention somewhere else I find I find someone like you very interesting uh I've talked to a couple of people like you like this who while we were all trapped inside our homes something very momentous happened to would that either be like an album blew up during the pandemic and all of a sudden you go from Heaven you know you're able to have your life too while you're inside watching your life change yeah and I had to imagine that that must have happened to you with normal people because that show I mean based on the novel of course but that show really takes off in a major way in a major way at least over here um while we can't go outside well you can't go to receptions and while you can't blah blah blah blah blah while while rewarding I bet it's also unmooring um what what what is that like I like it's really nice having kind of a little bit of a opportunity to zoom out from that time because in the middle of it I remember being like what is happening like what yeah like it's like in both like positive and negative I was like this is incredible I'm going to get to go forward now and make work because of this show and it wasn't a show that was kind of just popular and not critically well received it was like both those things it was like popular and a really I think well constructed show with Lenny and Daisy I think for all of us we had very kind of specific responses to like the kind of like World expanding view that it gave me of what this job can do but also how kind of restricting it can be I feel like now I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm not sure I understand like it was restricting in the sense that there's a pressure like people now know what you look like and where you live yeah who you're hanging out with who you're not hanging out hanging out with and that's all the bad side of it and that's okay you learn to live with that shift but ultimately it's been just phenomenal it's like I'm here talking to you about a film that I made last year because of that show I've made literally my best friends on that show I love what you said that the it gave you the opportunity to make the work that you want to make yeah you know so given that you have at this stage not every actor gets the stage very much sort of the stage where you have a little bit more choice you have a little bit more option what kind of stories do you do you want to tell going forward I don't I don't know if I have like a road map or kind of a checklist I think it's always going to be related to the filmmaker or director and the like the source material like if it's a character that I feel like I can represent accurately and truthfully um excuse me I'm going to do that um like I'm excited to go back on the stage I'm going back and doing Streetcar Named Desire in London this oh go away yeah this winter the big role the big Stella yeah screaming and roaring yeah have you done yet have you yelled stuff yelled it in the mirror and Disturbed my neighbors not haven't I'm like yeah we'll get to that in rehearsal but but you you going back to that gives you because it gives me something that I have missed in terms of kind of the like I went to a drama school that was predominantly focused on theater and worked in the theater for a couple of years after drama school and I just missed the kind of the private like five-week rehearsal period where nobody sees anything you're just making you're making a play for yourselves like this kind of like Band of Thieves is that the yeah yeah and then you put it out in the world and you're experiencing it live with an audience it kind of shortens that distance I think oh it's beautiful it's lovely to talk to you thanks for indulging me in my acting questions thank you very much uh and if you end up hosting Jeopardy of I like a cut exactly yeah yeah lovely to meet you yeah thanks very much

Channel: Q with Tom Power

Views: 191,177

Keywords: q on cbc, tom power, tom power q, q radio, cbc radio q, cbc radio, cbc radio show, Paul Mescal, Aftersun, Normal People

Id: J1Uh8LfIJDE

Length: 17min 52sec (1072 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 27 2022