To say that Paul Mescal’s life has been forever changed is something of an understatement. His role as Connor in the BBC and Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney’s “Normal People” has made him a recognizable face on both continents to fans of both the novel and the series. And today he landed an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Leading Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.
“I was rehearsing at the time and I was watching my phone to see if it would vibrate or if I’d get messages or not and thankfully I did and I freaked out a little bit,” Mescal says.
But the surprises kept coming for Mescal who is prepping for “a gig/spoken-word piece” in London at the moment.
“It’s so funny because it’s Hugh Jackman who I was getting nominated in the same category with and sent me a gorgeous email just there saying like, ‘Congratulations, and be it a virtual or physical ceremony, let’s catch up and have a drink,” Mescal says. “And he’s a huge idol of mine and I’m a massive admirer of his work. So, that’s kind of a big old pinch yourself moment.”
The reaction to “Normal People” by viewers has been intense. The 24-year-old Irish actor now has close to 1 million followers on Instagram. He was far under 100,000 days before the Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald directed mini-series debuted first on the BBC at the end of April. He recalls, “After it came out in the UK, I was kind of like, ‘O.K., I need to shield myself a little bit.'”
“Obviously the information in terms of the viewing figures and the public response kind of leaks through,” Mescal says. “But it was so vast, it was kind of really hard to compute at the time and it’s still something that I’m trying to process, I suppose.”
Obviously, like many in the industry, Mescal isn’t quite exactly sure what he’s doing next due to production concerns over the COVID pandemic.
“I can’t really discuss it because it’s patenting obviously due to kind of the coronavirus world that we’re living in,” Mescal says. “But if it goes through and it happens, I’ll be so excited to do it. And I’ll be working with really incredible filmmakers.”
For Abrahamson, it was something of a “brilliant day.” The Oscar-nominated director of “Room” was not only an executive producer of the series but directed half of the episodes. That led to an Emmy nod for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, Movie or Dramatic Special. And yes, he watched the initial live stream like everyone else when Mescal’s nod was announced but was unaware he’d been nominated as well.
“I was just sending emails of people going, ‘Oh, it’s amazing.’ And meanwhile, my phone was beeping and I was thinking, ‘Oh, this is wonderful. Everybody’s talking about Paul.’ Until I finally picked up one of their calls and they said, ‘Congratulations,'” Abrahamson recalls. “We started talking and I realized that actually there were these other three nominations, including one for me, which was yeah, really lovely.”
Like Mescal, Abrahamson was a bit taken aback by the reaction to the series.
“I’ve never experienced anything like it,” Abrahamson says. “And I think everybody involved in the show was kind of overwhelmed by the reaction. I remember one day thinking, ‘ I’m just going to…bring myself back down to Earth, like listen to a podcast about Brexit, which has been like a catastrophe over here.’ So, I thought this will bring me down. And then [the] BBC news people did this podcast and I downloaded it and ‘Normal People’ was in the title. And I thought, ‘This is crazy’ Everybody was talking about it.”
Abrahamson didn’t think the reaction would be as strong in the United States when it debuted on Hulu, but…
“I saw an email from James Corden saying how amazing it was. And then I started seeing all the stuff trending on Twitter and then all these amazing people talking about the show,” Abrahamson says following its Hulu debut. “You could just feel this thing rising and buzzing. I thought nobody was really predicting Emmy’s particularly in terms of nominations. We were sort of on the periphery or on the edge of people’s predictions. So, it was really lovely today to have that validated that people just really like the show. And I think that came through in these nominations.”
Next on the agenda for Abramson is the adaptation of another Rooney novel, “Conversations With Friends.” Like “Normal People,” it’s set in Ireland and involves “pretty much the same [creative] team” which means it won’t involve a lot of traveling “given the world we’re in at the moment.” It also turns out that Louise Kiely, who earned a nomination for Outstanding Casting For A Limited Series, Movie Or Special for “Normal People,” is hard at work with Abrahamson and others on casting “Conversations.”
“We’re early days and I have the same attitude as I had for ‘Normal People,’ which is we should cast the best person for the role,” Abrahamson says. “And that means looking out at people who are relatively unknown, given the ages of the characters, a lot of the people we’re looking at will be relatively unknown. But we wouldn’t rule out somebody with a profile if they were right for it.”
Rooney also earned an Emmy nomination for writing the third episode of “Normal People” with Alice Birch.
“She’s an exec producer and she’s very, very involved and will be very involved in all our discussions about scripts,” Abrahamson says. “But she is deep in her new novel at the moment and that’s taking up all of her kind of creative energy. But she is deeply involved. So we have her insight and her wisdom. But we’re [also] working again with Alice Birch and with some other really brilliant writers here in Ireland and from elsewhere. So, there’s a sort of a really good writer’s room and Sally’s there as an exec, so it feels pretty much like the DNA of the processes the same.”
“Normal People” is available on Hulu.
