#paul-mescal

#paul-mescal

While Chloe Zhao's Hamnet has been nominated for eight Academy Awards including best picture, for many it's a tiny silver hoop earring worn by Paul Mescal in his portrayal of William Shakespeare that steals the show. Worn in his left ear lobe, the barely-there hoop has people fixated online. Begging my boyfriend to get a tiny hoop earring too, reads one post dedicated to the accessory. I cried for over half of Hamnet, but Paul Mescal's slutty little earring made me feel conflicted, reads another.

I don't want to get into the Beatles thing, not coyly, but actually because I think the world hopefully will benefit from knowing as little as possible going into it.

It's so good when you get to do Zoom press with ['Gladiator II' co-star] Pedro [Pascal] or 'The History of Sound' co-star] Josh [O'Connor] or Jessie," he said. "It's immediate. It's such a joy. But I do find that it cranks up this level of imposter syndrome, where you spend so much time talking about it that when you go back to set, you're like, 'Jesus, I better be fucking good,' because you spent so much time discussing it. I'm just taking a break from promoting because I have nothing to promote!

Not so much for the carnal stuff, but for the way every word he utters is taken to be as beautiful as he is. Intoxicated by their admiration, his admirers leap headfirst into the still waters of his pronouncements apparently certain of hidden depths thereunder. So it has been with the reaction to how he comforted his director when she confessed, in so many words, that she couldn't always grasp what Shakespeare was on about.

Russell Crowe has said that the makers of Gladiator II did not understand what made that first one special. In interview excerpts posted on social media by Australian radio station Triple J, Crowe said that the Gladiator sequel, which starred Paul Mescal and was released in 2024, was let down by the people in that engine room not actually understanding what made that first one special.