What we know about Kildare man Paul Mescal's next three films

Fresh off the $462 million dollar box-office draw of Gladiator II in late 2024, Kildare's Paul Mescal has three films on his upcoming slate with a trio of projects currently in post-production.

The Maynooth native will star alongside fellow Irish actor Jessie Buckley in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet. Mescal will play William Shakespeare in this fictional story about the life of him and his wife Agnes Shakespeare, following the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet.

This historical drama is based on the 2020 novel by Maggie O'Farrell and will be directed by Chloé Zhao, who won a Best Director Oscar for her 2020 film Nomadland, which also won Best Picture at the 93rd Academy Awards. No release date has been confirmed for Hamnet, but it is due to come out in 2025.

Next on his 2025 slate and with a release date in mind, Mescal will lead alongside Challengers and The Crown star Josh O’Connor in The History of Sound. The historical romantic drama follows the relationship between two men who meet in 1916 and then travel together in the summer of 1919 to record the folk songs of their countrymen in rural New England. 

The film is based on the short story of the same name by Ben Shattuck and is written and directed by Oliver Hermanus. Last month, Mubi and Focus Features/Universal Pictures acquired the North American and international distribution rights, respectively.

The film is likely to debut at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival in May.

The final film in this trio is a peculiar one with Mescal featuring in Richard Linklater’s Merrily We Roll Along, which is set to be filmed over several decades. 

The film is based on the 1981 stage musical by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, which was itself adapted from the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. 

Mescal will portray Franklin Shepard, a talented Broadway composer that abandons his friends and career to become a Hollywood producer. It is a story that is told over the course of 20 years in reverse chronological order.

Mescal is in safe hands however with the extended format not unusual to the filmmaker. Linklater is famed for filming his 2014 film Boyhood over 12 years, as well as the masterful Before Trilogy (Sunset, Sunrise, and Midnight), which were each made nine years apart and followed the story of one couple.

Mescal continues his upward trajectory following his Academy Award nomination in 2022 for his role in Aftersun and his starring role in a major blockbuster last year, Gladiator II.

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