An Applause For Paul Mescal’s Rendition Of A Streetcar Named Desire
NOTE: I began writing this piece in March and am just getting around to publishing it now. Apologies for the dated topic!
They say Tom Cruise is the last movie star, but at what point do we start worrying about the last actor? We’re no where near that day; not yet. But few things in the film industry concern me more than what Maya Hawke revealed regarding the contemporary casting process. Studios are fulfilling quotas of social media followers when casting their films.
“They’re like, ‘Just so you know, when I’m casting a movie with some producers, they hand me a sheet with the amount of collective followers I have to get of the cast that I cast so if you delete your Instagram, and I lose those followers, understand that these are the kinds of people I need to cast around you.’”
In a sense, popularity has always mattered over talent in Hollywood, at least when making a blockbuster. There’s still something surreal about attaching a tangible metric to the ordeal.
Paul Mescal (Normal People, Gladiator II) has been on my radar since I first watched him in Aftersun. He’s a phenomenal talent, but I’ve never had my mind blown by a theatrical performance like it was while watching his rendition of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire at BAM.
If someone had tied a scarf around my face and I only experienced the play’s audio, I would have never guessed I was listening to him. Then you throw in the physicality, with Mescal demonstrating Kowalski’s primality in a way I couldn’t have imagined him doing. I’m used to Connell from Normal People, but even as Lucius in Gladiator, Paul Mescal just seemed like a gentle fellow. The unexpected performances are always the ones that blow me away the most, and this was certainly unexpected.
Paul Mescal gives me faith that acting is still a profession that rewards talent. He’s not quite at the level of popularity as Timothée Chalamet or others in his age group, but he’s sought out different types of roles, and he’s building a career as a movie star all the same. I’m looking forward to see him in Hamnet later this year, and hoping it will earn him some Oscar buzz.
