Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott told Patrick Kielty on Friday’s Late Late Show that the experience of making their new film All of Us Strangers has given them a great friendship as well as being one of the highlights of their working lives.
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“I’m a huge admirer of Andrew’s work and have been for years,” Mescal told the host. “But I think, actually, All of Us Strangers was the catalyst for the friendship, or the bromance that people are referencing now I think happened as a result of filming All of Us Strangers.”
“Sometimes you just have chemistry,” continued Scott. “I don’t necessarily mean it’s like physical chemistry or whatever. Chemistry’s a really weird thing with actors, you just have to really enjoy acting with each other. But it’s really helped when you like the person! And we had really intense stuff to do in the movie and that kind of bonds you when you’re sitting naked…”
“On a Monday morning at nine o’clock!” laughed Mescal.
“You gotta have a laugh!” said Scott.
The Andrew Haigh-directed All of Us Strangers is already one of the most acclaimed films of 2024 and received its Irish premiere at Dublin’s Lighthouse Cinema on Friday night. It is tipped to be among the Oscar nominees next Tuesday and has already received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations.
“It’s a really difficult movie to try and explain in some ways,” said Scott. “But it’s a film about this man who’s a sort of solitary figure and he’s trying to write about his parents, and he sort of conjures up his parents at the time he remembers them most – and they’d been killed in a car accident 30 years previously when he was 11.
“He conjures them up at the time he remembers them most acutely, which is when they were sort of roughly around the same age that he is now. So he has these beautiful conversations with his family, with his parents, played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell, and at the same time he develops this sort of relationship with his handsome neighbour.”
“That’s me!” Mescal explained.
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After a clip from the film was shown, Kielty said: “They’re applauding two incredible performances there. They’re also applauding the only person on Planet Earth that has ever turned down Paul Mescal!”
“It’s a make-believe character!” quipped Scott.
Scott went on to say he was “completely obsessed” with making sure Mescal signed on for the film.
“It’s a really extraordinary role and Paul plays this with such extraordinary humanity,” he said.
“It’s a really beautiful film this and it’s a love story, but it’s also… It’s about romantic love, but it’s also about familial love and there’s so much stuff that requires such compassion and delicacy – and Paul, I think, is the king of just being able to convince us of so many things just through so little. He’s just a beautiful actor because he’s such a great person.”
“It’s been one of the most extraordinarily beautiful privileges of my life to work with Paul and so wonderful to have a working relationship but also just to develop a friendship like we have. It’s really important, particularly in these very intimidating places we get to go to [in the film], it’s just brilliant to have somebody that you love,” Scott added.
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Saluting Scott, Mescal said: “This is one of, I think, the great modern performances and what he does in the film is absurdly brilliant. And to get the share the screen with him, to me, is one of the greatest professional and personal privileges of my life. He’s an extraordinary human being…”
“Shut up now!” said Scott.
Both Mescal and Scott said they were delighted to come home with All of Us Strangers and for the film to receive such a warm reception.
All of Us Strangers opens in cinemas on Friday 26 January.
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