Both stars have bigger films on release but are hugely proud of The History of Sound, which has been four years in the making. They talk about the vulnerability of singing, the cost of inhabiting a role – and rationing future parts
All things considered, telling Paul Mescal I once placed a bet on him is not quite the icebreaker I had hoped. Or rather, it breaks the ice in an unusual way.
“The key question,” he says, his voice betraying a hint of trepidation, “is what was the bet? Most Likely to Join the 27 Club?”
Wow: that’s bleak – but funny. Josh O’Connor, who plays Mescal’s lover in the austere new wartime love story The History of Sound, certainly thinks so. Cosied up beside his co-star, he is overcome with appalled laughter.
It’s true that Mescal was approaching 27 when I had that flutter on him three years ago. But far from betting that he would meet a premature end at the same tender age as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain, I was throwing down my £25 in a flurry of excitement at his surprise Oscar nomination in 2023 for Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun. He played a young father concealing his suicidal depression from his daughter while they are holidaying together in Turkey. His performance, like the film, is infinitely subtle and mysterious, its thrashing turmoil hidden beneath an opaque surface.
