Paul Mescal tells Vanity Fair how his GAA background helped him land Gladiator role

Paul Mescal has revealed that his GAA background probably played a role in his being cast in director Ridley Scott's follow up to Gladiator. 

He told Vanity Fair that his Roman nose, which he got teased about in school, also did him no harm in securing the high-profile role. 

It turns out that Ridley Scott had taken note of him in the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney's Normal People and when the director was casting for Gladiator II he arranged a Zoom call with Mescal. 

It really did happen that fast, Mescal confirmed to Vanity Fair. “We spoke for about 20 to 30 minutes,” he says.

“I wanted to get a flavor from him about what the story was going to be about, so we spent about 15 minutes talking about that, and then we spent another 10 minutes talking about the sport that I played growing up—Gaelic football. Maybe that was something that helped with it, in that I’m used to being physical in my body,” Mescal said in the interview. 

Mescal said they talked about possibly doing a camera test, but Scott decided he didn’t need it. “My memory of it is that probably two or three weeks later, the offer came in,” Mescal told Vanity Fair.

The Maynooth native was a promising GAA footballer, having lined out for his club and Kildare at underage level. He also represented his county at U21 level before his acting career really took off. 

He suffered a number of injuries during his GAA career including a broken nose and broken jaw, before his acting career took up his complete focus. 

Mescal, who attended Maynooth Post Primary School, performed on stage for the first time at 16 in the musical The Phantom of the Opera. Soon after Mescal auditioned and gained admission to The Lir Academy at Trinity College Dublin.

He graduated in 2017 to study acting and secured agents prior to his graduation.