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Paul Mescal stars in Aftersun.Courtesy of A24

You may know burgeoning Irish actor Paul Mescal best as Connell Waldron, the introspective jock prone to weeping during sex in the hit 2020 adaptation of the Sally Rooney novel Normal People. Since then, Mescal has risen from unexpected heartthrob to indie darling status, thanks to his memorable supporting turns in God’s Creatures and The Lost Daughter, as well as a relationship with acclaimed singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers.

This year sees the actor finally step into his leading man potential in Charlotte Wells’s debut Aftersun, which screened at Cannes and the Toronto International Film Festival. The feature is a devastating examination of grief through a child’s hazy lens, based on Wells’s own experiences. Mescal is at his most lovable and heartbreaking as a mysterious single dad trying to show his tween daughter Sophie (an incredible Frankie Corio) a good time on their summer vacation at a Turkish resort. Seen both weeping at the edge of his bed, and duetting with his daughter to R.E.M., Mescal is haunting as the mercurial Calum, both fiercely in love with his child and torn asunder by melancholy.

Sitting in a Toronto café in a shirt adorned with embroidered roses during his first-ever TIFF, Mescal acerbically muses on the art of pretend fatherhood and how it feels to be the world’s pandemic boyfriend.

“It’s great,” he says. “Well, great and weird. The thing with acting is, as much as I get my cathartic release doing it, it’s also a service I’m providing to people. I want to maintain a high standard for myself, but also for an audience. The landscape of cinema at the moment is tenuous enough that I feel like films like Aftersun are fighting the good fight.”

When you were playing this role, did you ever think about your own dad?

I didn’t think about it literally because that would spook me, but both my mum and dad were present. That’s the relationship that I understand best, probably the most out of any of my relationships. And I loved pretending to be a dad.

You were a very good pretend dad.

That’s very nice! That’s the job. No, I have always wanted kids and this kind of cemented that position.

All your characters must be so hard to leave afterward.

This one was particularly difficult because it was the first time where I was, in some capacity, responsible to a young person. My brain tricked me into thinking, “You’re her pretend dad for eight weeks.” I don’t work in a way where I forget myself, but there was this psychological thing where I could talk to Charlie in my own accent. But for a couple of hours every day after we finished filming, everyone was like, “You only talk to Frankie in Callum’s voice.”

How did working with a child actor change your style of acting?

I like working with actors who are dexterous. That’s how I’d describe the acting process I like and what’s necessary when you’re working with a child who can only be on set for four hours a day. You’ve got to check all of your crap at the door. You’ve gotta go, “I’m working with a child who’s incredibly present, who’s incredibly talented, and that’s a gift.” It reminded me that I should be doing more of that.

It’s an interesting character because you’re so warm and engaged when you’re with your daughter, but there’s this real tinge of sadness. I’m curious how much of his inner world you consciously brought to all the scenes where you’re just playing around together.

I remember having a conversation with Charlie early where I was like, “We can play a fun game where it’s like, I don’t want Frankie or Sophie to know that I’m not okay.” I feel like it’s his job to be like, “Protect yourself, hide, don’t let your daughter see that you’re vulnerable.”

That’s a real echo of Connell in Normal People. You seem to play these guys who are trying to be upstanding …

And failing, yeah. I think I’m drawn to playing characters with a complicated inner life. I’m attracted to sadness as an artistic theme. It’s something I understand and I find catharsis in the playing of it.

As the character is based on Charlotte’s own father, did you feel any obligation stepping into that role?

The script she wrote was so beautifully constructed and I think you’ve got to hold people’s work with great care. I felt a huge degree of responsibility to hold up my end of the bargain.

That long take where you’re weeping at the edge of the bed … there’s no vanity to it. How did you prepare to go there?

Yeah, I hate it … because it’s not like crying, it’s sorrow. Your body is trying to protect you from going there and it’s your job to go there. I think we did two or three takes. I always get so embarrassed because you’re subjecting the crew who are working really hard to this grown man howling at the edge of his bed. I find it really hard to stop once it starts.

Aftersun opens in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver Oct. 28; it expands to Calgary, Winnipeg, Regina, Ottawa, Quebec City and other locations in Ontario Nov. 4

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