Paul Mescal’s ascent to Oscar glory should be studied. Emulating the career paths of, say, Leonardo DiCaprio and, more recently, Timothée Chalamet, the 26-year-old Irish actor skirted inevitable superhero parts in the wake of his star-making turn in Normal People and signed on to an emotional indie from a first-time director. That movie, Charlotte Wells’s haunting father-daughter drama Aftersun, has now earned him a Best Actor nod – a reward for the laser-focused thoughtfulness that has gone into his trajectory so far.
Mescal probably won’t win the Oscar next month – Elvis’s Austin Butler and The Banshees of Inisherin’s Colin Farrell seem more likely – but he is the internet’s golden boy right now, his nod one of the most pleasant takeaways from a surprisingly strong list of Oscar nominations announced today.
