He has also signed up for another project that, in its unique commitment, will neatly map onto the stages of his life: a Merrily We Roll Along adaptation filmed by Richard Linklater over the course of 20 years. Linklater, who famously directed Boyhood over 12 years, is doing an ambitious retelling of the Sondheim musical about three friends’ intersecting lives over two decades. Mescal is playing Franklin Shepard, a charismatic composer who finds success at the grave expense of his relationships with friends and family.
The cast, which includes musical theatre stalwarts Beanie Feldstein and Ben Platt, meets up every few years to film a segment. Because of the reverse chronological nature of the story, what he’s filming right now will come at the very end of the film. When they are done with this undertaking, it will likely be the year 2042. Mescal will be well into his 40s then.
“I would love to not be like Franklin, the character,” Mescal says. “Yeah, I’d love to be settled, married, kids would be nice.” It’s hard for Mescal to look that far into the future, though. He is a young man, with the present so firmly gripped in the palm of his hand.
As we talk more, I discover there’s another reason he shies from thinking so far ahead.
“I’ve always been convinced that I’m not going to live a long life,” he tells me, not with any sort of fear or pain. Just as simple as if he’s stating that the sky is blue.
I react as you might expect.
“I know,” he says. “People have this response, but in my head it’s never been drastic. It’s just like a gut feeling. And maybe it’s to do with the fact that I can’t visualise myself as an 80-year-old man.”
You seem strangely comfortable with this idea.
“But I’m also afraid of death,” he says. “So I think if death was to come for me at 55, I’d be equally afraid of it as I would be at 90.”
I don’t think anyone’s ever ready.
“No, I don’t believe anybody who’s like, ‘I’m ready for it.’ I’m like, ‘Bullshit!’ ”
Where did that gut feeling come from?
“It’s always in my head. I was like, Going to have a family young. I’m going to not survive a long time. Hopefully, I’m wrong. I think I will be wrong. But that’s just the truth around my brain.”
Ever the Gaelic football player, he compares the here and now to being in a purple patch – a winning streak. The neurosis is that it might end. He knows he’s in his prime, that people have an appetite to watch him work, and that one day that might not be the case and so he has to seize it all now.
“I’m enjoying it so much right now that I don’t want it to not be like this,” he says.
I boil down the emotion to its simplest form: when you’re happy, when things are good, there’s an undercurrent of melancholy because you realise life can’t stay this way forever.
His eyes light up. He gets excited.
“Yeah, but weirdly, in a professional context, it can. It can!” Mescal says. “It’s rare, but… yeah,” he exhales. “I desperately want it to.” I believe him.
Styled by George Cortina
Hair by Rudi Lewis at LGA Management
Skin by Miranda Joyce using Clé de Peau Beauté
Tailoring by Della George
Set Design by Max Bellhouse at the Magnet Agency
Produced by Farago Projects