Paul Mescal is sharing the deeper meaning behind his sex scenes with Andrew Scott in their upcoming film All of Us Strangers.
During his Variety “Actors on Actors” interview with Natalie Portman, Mescal, 27, said that while their characters’ intimate moments are undoubtedly sexy, they also serve a larger, “healing” purpose in the story.
Directed by Andrew Haigh, All of Us Strangers follows Adam (Scott), a writer who revisits his childhood home to discover his parents frozen in time and alive at the ages they were when they died 30 years earlier. Adam subsequently becomes romantically entangled with his mysterious neighbor, Harry (Mescal).
“I think films like this are an indication of a distance we’ve traveled but ultimately there’s still quite a ways to go,” Mescal said of the film’s portrayal of a same-sex relationship.
The Irish actor added that while he’s “probably not equipped” to discuss that aspect of the film’s significance, the sex scenes were made “in an attempt to make something that felt really hot and sexy” but also meaningful in a narrative context.
“You have Andrew Scott’s character Adam who’s in his mid-40s, who has a difficult relationship with his relationship to sex,” Mescal explained. “And then you have Harry come in who is much more comfortable. Harry serves as a kind of safe landing space for him to re-explore his sexuality, which I think is both really moving and also really sexy.”
He continued, “I think sex in film, or any form of media, when it can be healing and sexy at the same time, that’s when it’s at its best.”
Mescal and Portman, 42, went on to commiserate about the less thoughtful depictions of sex in media. “I think we’re moving away from that,” Mescal said. “Or at least I hope so. I’ve been lucky that I haven’t been in a sex scene in a film where I’m like, ‘I don’t know why this is here.’
In September, Haigh told Vanity Fair that Mescal and Scott were “fearless” when it came to shooting love scenes in All of Us Strangers.
“I’ve been more objective in how I’ve shot sex scenes in the past,” he continued. “Here, I really wanted to feel the subjective nature of having sex and what it feels like — the nervousness and the excitement and the physical sensation of being touched by someone else and what that does to you.”
Mescal rose to stardom in Hulu’s Normal People, a 2020 series based on author Sally Rooney’s popular book by the same name. The show’s authentic and vulnerable depiction of sex became one of its most notable features, and Mescal similarly praised how producers approached them.
“We had an incredibly supportive team that made those kind of scenes feel the least awkward they could possibly feel,” the actor said on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in 2021.
All of Us Strangers will be released on December 22. Watch the full trailer here.
