{"id":196904,"date":"2025-12-17T17:54:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T17:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/196904\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T17:54:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T17:54:06","slug":"everything-about-paul-mescal-is-irresistible-with-one-exception-adrian-chiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/196904\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything about Paul Mescal is irresistible \u2013 with one exception | Adrian Chiles"},"content":{"rendered":"

I want to believe in reincarnation because I want to come back as Paul Mescal<\/a>. What it must be like to be irresistible. I\u2019m sure it gets wearing, but I\u2019d still like to give it a try, just for research purposes. Not so much for the carnal stuff, but for the way every word he utters is taken to be as beautiful as he is. Intoxicated by their admiration, his admirers leap headfirst into the still waters of his pronouncements apparently certain of hidden depths thereunder.<\/p>\n

So it has been with the reaction to how he comforted his director when she confessed, in so many words, that she couldn\u2019t always grasp what Shakespeare was on about. We\u2019ve all been there. At least I have. There there, quoth Mescal: \u201cListen, if Shakespeare is performed right, you don\u2019t have to understand what they\u2019re saying. You feel it in the body, the language is written like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

You know what that is, don\u2019t you? That\u2019s balls, that\u2019s what that is. Of course you need to understand what\u2019s being said and what\u2019s going on. At least I do. I\u2019ve often been told not to trouble myself with such trifling details. Just let the artistry wash over you, I\u2019m told, and consider how it makes me feel. Well, I\u2019ll tell you how it makes me feel. It makes me feel confused, rather inadequate, frustrated, even angry, ultimately disengaged and therefore bored. Just plain bored.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s different with visual art, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that I know nowt about it. Here it is liberating to be able to just stand there and take in a picture or sculpture or installation of some kind and see how it makes me, yes, feel. But with plays, films and TV shows<\/a>, I need more. If I can\u2019t understand the words I\u2019m unlikely to understand the plot, and if I can\u2019t understand the plot I\u2019ll have no interest in the words anyway. Somerset Maugham wrote that the plot is \u201ca lifeline which the author throws to the reader in order to hold his interest\u201d. And there I sit, for want of that lifeline, not waving but drowning in a sea of confusion.<\/p>\n

If Mescal feels the truth of something in his beautiful bones then so it shall surely be<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been told I\u2019m being too literal to appreciate what I\u2019m watching. But that, ironically, is too literal an interpretation of what I\u2019m saying. I don\u2019t need to understand every word, every sentence, the relevance of every plot twist, to piece together what\u2019s happening and give me a reason to stick with it. There ought to be something available like the directors\u2019 commentaries you occasionally got as an extra on DVDs, just a kind, non-judgmental voice explaining things, talking you through it, holding your hand, perhaps via an earpiece so as not to disturb whoever you have beside you on the sofa.<\/p>\n

Going back to Mescal<\/a>, to be fair to the lad we\u2019re only going by Hamnet director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao<\/a>\u2019s recollection of what he said. But if her memory is not playing tricks I suspect \u201cYou feel it in the body\u201d was the intellectual clincher. Once he had said that, he could have got away with just about any proposition he offered. Because if Mescal feels the truth of something in his beautiful bones \u2013 the coming of a storm, what Ulysses is talking about in Shakespeare\u2019s Troilus and Cressida, all seven winners at Haydock on Saturday, whatever \u2013 then so it shall surely be.<\/p>\n

I wonder if the truth was that the actor himself couldn\u2019t make head or tail of the script, either. In which case you can imagine the poor chap\u2019s panic when the director said she wasn\u2019t clear on some of the language. \u201cShite! Oh no, she\u2019s going to ask me to explain it. Aaargh. What am I gonna do? Ah, there\u2019s nothing for it, I\u2019ll have to play the feel-it-in-my-body card. Never failed me yet.\u201d Got to respect that. If you\u2019ve got it mate, flaunt it, that\u2019s what I say.<\/p>\n

Adrian Chiles is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I want to believe in reincarnation because I want to come back as Paul Mescal. What it must…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-196904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}