It has come to our attention that, despite currently promoting a big action movie for boys about the Roman Empire, Paul Mescal will not stop indicating that, in his heart, he is not a Tom Cruise but a Mandy Patinkin. To paraphrase Clueless: He’s a jazz-dancing, Stephen Sondheim–reading, Palace Theatre–ticket-holding friend of Audra, know what I’m saying? “I love musicals,†he told Ariana Grande outright in his Actors on Actors video on December 10. He later admitted that, if he had to choose between stage or film acting, he would go for “the act of being onstage and the fact that once the curtain goes up it’s yours.†Someone get this boy into Jesus Christ Superstar. Stat. Below, every time Mescal’s deep desire to be a musical-theater star instead of a brooding heartthrob has shined through.
February 1, 2012: Mescal stars in his first musical, Maynooth Post Primary School’s production of Phantom of the Opera, taking on the title role. “I was 16,†he recounted to Grande. “I was in transition year, which is like two years before finishing school. And I remember being wheeled out on this fake organ and fucking not having a clue how to play the organ.†Still: A deep love was born. The full production has been uploaded to YouTube.
September 26–30, 2012: Mescal stars as Javert in the Meath Youth Musical Society’s production of Les Misérables. He won the role over 100 other candidates per a contemporaneous article from the Meath Chronicle. In the video evidence we have, his sideburns take up most of his face.
January 9, 2023: Mescal takes a long break from musical theater, starring in plays in Dublin, then plays in London, and then in Normal People, which blows up over the pandemic. In 2023, it is announced that he will replace Blake Jenner in the longtime out but technically upcoming adaptation of Merrily We Roll Along, directed by Richard Linklater, which will shoot over the course of 20 years. Big commitment for a boy who hasn’t done musical theater in almost ten years! He wants back in.
March 2023: Mescal plays Stanley Kowalski in Rebecca Frecknall’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire in the West End, showing he intends to keep up a theatrical career alongside his burgeoning one in film.
April 21, 2023: One of his first projects to release post–Normal People? A mostly songless film adaptation of the opera Carmen in which Melissa Barrera plays a dancer; it is largely buried by the studio. We cannot understand why Mescal went with this, other than if he were trying to get as close to the stage as he could without actually treading the boards.
November 11, 2024: It is confirmed that Mescal will star in Frecknall’s Streetcar in New York, only it won’t be on Broadway — it will be in Brooklyn. Maybe he’ll get the chance to see a few musicals while he’s in town … get inspired. We bet he’d love Death Becomes Her.
December 8, 2024: Mescal hosts Saturday Night Live and stars in a parody sketch of Gladiator II, the musical. He shows off his singing voice to the general public for the first time and, by golly, what a lustrous tenor he has! Yes, it’s true: Mescal’s singing voice is positively beautiful.
December 10, 2024: On Actors on Actors with Grande, he fangirls hard over Wicked and talks about his love of musicals a lot. “I have this theory: My parents met onstage doing Pirates of Penzance,†he says, “so I have this weird thing that somewhere in my blood, or in my heart or head, that the act of being onstage feels like an important place.†It’s clearly time for him to just admit it: He wants to star in A New Brain or Rooms or Assassins. He wants to sing his heart out! And he wants to do it live! Be free, broody Paul, be free!