It's been a magnificent last few days for Paul Mescal. After being cast in Ridley Scott's upcoming Gladiator 2, it was announced that the Irish actor and star of Normal People will have a leading role in Richard Linklater's Merrily We Roll Along.
Linklater has directed such titles as The School Of Rock and the Before Trilogy, and also the groundbreaking Boyhood which was shot with the same actors over a 12 year span.
Linklater is now going even further with his adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along musical, which Linklater plans to shoot over 20 years.
Mescal has taken over the lead role from Blake Jenner - after the actor was dropped over domestic abuse issues - and will star alongside Jonah Hill's sister Beanie Feldstein, and Ben Platt.
Everything Is Coming Up Paul Mescal
Paul Mescal being cast in Ridley Scott’s GLADIATOR 2 *and* Richard Linklater’s MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG in the span of three days AND in the same year in which he could be headed to his first Oscar nomination for AFTERSUN is the definition of king shit pic.twitter.com/biTlz7Bwgx
— Zoë Rose Bryant (@ZoeRoseBryant) January 9, 2023
READ HERE: There Was A Lot Of Support For Paul Mescal After He Did Not Wear The Poppy On The Graham Norton Show
“I really admire ‘Boyhood,’ and I thought when he came to me with the project that it was such a brilliant marriage of that concept with this material," said Ben Platt in an interview from 2019.
"I feel like people are hearing ’20-year musical’ and ‘Richard Linklater,’ and that’s obviously very exciting. But what a lot of people who aren’t in the musical theater community don’t know is how perfectly matched that is to this particular piece, and how it solves the age-old issues the piece has always had.”
“This is a piece of Sondheim’s that has always had such incredible components, and so many things in it that are is really special.
"There are moments in the score and conceptually, this whole idea of friendship and people becoming jaded over time, there’s always been so many brilliant pieces, but it’s never quite entirely clicked."
SEE ALSO: Johnny Rotten’s Irish Eurovision Entry Is Interesting To Say The Least
