Paul Mescal Was Told to Turn Down ‘Aftersun’ With Fear of Being Typecast in Older Father Roles
Paul Mescal was warned not to take on the role of a father following “The Lost Daughter.”
The “Normal People” alum told former co-star Dakota Johnson for Interview magazine that he was advised to not take on the role of a struggling young dad in “Aftersun” in fear of being aged out of other parts.
More from IndieWire
“I think it’s weird because people tell you you shouldn’t do that,” Mescal said. “As a young actor, they’re like, ‘Careful, don’t go play that too soon or you’ll be typecast.'”
He joked, “And I’m like, ‘Look at me. I don’t look like I’m my age, I look older.’ I look like I’m 47.”
The 26-year-old actor plays the at-times absent father of an 11-year-old girl who embarks brings his daughter on a vacation to Turkey in the 1990s. “Aftersun” premiered at 2022 Cannes’ Critics Week, marking writer/director Charlotte Wells’ feature debut. Barry Jenkins produced the feature.
Mescal noted that he “got around” the issue of the age discrepancy between him and his onscreen daughter Sophie, played by Francesca Corio, by acknowledging just how young he is.
“At the start of the film, Sophie, my daughter, and I are mistaken for brother and sister. He is described as a young dad, looks like a young dad, is a young man,” Mescal said. “I think it’s interesting when you see somebody who is young and in a position of responsibility, and who is really good at being a dad, but is also struggling with turning 30.”
The “God’s Creatures” actor also revealed that his “Aftersun” audition tape was to Blur’s “Song 2” with him having to “smoke a cigarette and dance around the kitchen but not dance.”
“We’ve seen the absent father tons of times. I find it harder to play that role because — maybe I’m generalizing, but that is a trait I would associate with somebody who’s more jaded,” Mescal said of his character. “Calum has an enthusiasm for life 80 percent of the time, and then there’s a crippling 20 percent of his inner landscape that just dominates a moment.”
And while “Aftersun” went on to screen at TIFF, Telluride, NYFF, and the Hamptons International Film Festival, Mescal dreads watching the full film in public. “Sitting in on the first public screening is a level of torture that I wouldn’t inflict on my worst enemy,” Mescal quipped.
While at the Telluride Film Festival, Mescal said that learning how “to play a young man and young father at the same time” drew him to the film, but that “I don’t know how well it bodes going from, like, high school teenage drama to the young dad in the space of two years.”
IndieWire’s David Ehrlich wrote in his A review for the film that “Aftersun” is a “sublime” work of art that “exists in a liminal space between memory and imagination that every viewer will have to locate for themselves.”
Ehrlich wrote, “Few movies have ever ended with a more tempting invitation to do something impossible, but ‘Aftersun’ is so unforgettable because of the agonizing beauty it finds in the futile act of trying.”
Best of IndieWire
Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
