‘Many actors shut off from the rest of the world’ – Paul Mescal on his jump from being ‘totally anonymous’ to household name

Actor Paul Mescal has told how he had to develop his own ways of coping with fame after he made the jump from “totally anonymous” to a household name after starring in Normal People.

The 27-year-old was last week nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the BAFTAs for his role in All of Us Strangers, which he stars in alongside Dubliner Andrew Scott.

His breakout role was in the TV adaptation of the Sally Rooney novel Normal People and he was last year nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Aftersun alongside other leading men like Brendan Fraser, Colin Farrell and Bill Nighy.

Mescal’s latest film All of Us Strangers has received six BAFTA nominations, including a nod for Mescal as Best Supporting Actor.

He has said “the biggest jump” in adjusting to his new life since the smash hit series Normal People aired was moving from being “totally anonymous to not anonymous”.

“You develop your own set of rules…but you develop a kind of coping mechanism from that junction and the rest is hopefully going to stay nice and level,” he told broadcaster Louis Theroux in the latest season of his podcast.

The pair discussed their experiences in the public eye, with Mescal describing his experience as his body and mind “naturally going to protect itself”.

“But then again, the danger I see with other actors is that they overprotect themselves,” he said, adding that many end up “shutting off from the rest of the world”.

He also told Theroux how he was repeatedly mistaken as a British actor until he was forced to address inaccurate headlines on social media, quoting an article on X – “to tell people I was Irish”.

“It was apparently the most retweeted tweet on Irish Twitter [now X] that year.”

The actor admitted he has been forced to take a step back from his social media channels in the wake of his rise to fame, with Theroux believing the reasons behind this withdrawal were “trolls and anxiety”.

However, Mescal revealed the real reason was the constant pressure he felt to share his photoshoots and news about his upcoming projects. He said it made him feel like a “commodity”.

The Louis Theroux Podcast is a Spotify podcast and is now available everywhere with new episodes releasing every Tuesday.

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