High up in a level 6 function room in Croke Park, Paul Mescal is relaxed, friendly and ready to talk up the biggest role of his life. So far.
GAA HQ is a neat choice for the Gladiator II press day. 28-year-old Mescal was a minor and under-21s Gaelic football player for his home county of Kildare and in his new movie, he steps into another arena entirely - the Roman Colosseum as Lucius, an angry young man ready to wreak vengeance on the empire that killed his father and stole his birthright.
We know Mescal from the sensitive young men and he played in Normal People and Aftersun but Ridley Scott's Gladiator II is set to turn him from acclaimed indie actor to bone fide movie star.
He is buffed, bearded and bronzed and prepared to do battle but the idea of Paul Mescal - action hero was something he or the rest of us never saw coming.
"But I don’t think I would have been drawn to it had it not been for Ridley having made the kind of film the first Gladiator was. It is an action movie but there is a sensitivity required for the role. I was holding out for something like this to happen but I never expected it to be this big."
Mescal has already carved out quite a career. From early beginnings in The Great Gatsby at The Gate Theatre in Dublin in 2017 to a Bafta award for Normal People, a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor, an Oscar nomination for Afersun in 2022 and yet more acclaim for All of Us Strangers, he has become a major star in under five years.
However, the big question ever since Mescal was announced as the actor who would pick up Russell Crowe’s sword nearly a quarter of a century after the first Gladiator was - could he do justice to the role?
"I don’t really care about all that," Mescal says with a shrug. "I’m there to do my job and if Ridley trusts me to do it . . . The first film was his baby so he’s not going to put the new one in the hands of someone he doesn’t think can carry it off.
"I am quite proud of my work in this film and I think I managed to bring a style of performance similar to Aftersun and even Normal People to this movie, which I don’t think is easy.
"I think you can get too focused on what other people think," he adds. "I think this is an Oscar Wilde quote - ‘other people’s opinion of you is none of your business’ and it’s a very liberating idea for actors to see it that way."
In the new instalment, which is set 15 years after the first movie, Mescal plays Lucius, son of Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus Decimus Meridius.
He is very much his father’s son. They both share a burning hatred for what ancient Rome has become and both seek revenge but Lucius has a deeper side, too - he’s not all Alpha male masculinity.
He quotes Virgil and weeps and Mescal says he was keen to bring some vulnerability to the character.
"I particularly like that scene where Lucius quotes Virgil," the actor says. "I liked playing it because there is something subversive about how Lucius can understand what the emperors are saying but he chooses not to answer their question so he quotes Virgil, which gives the scene that poetic quality."
Gladiator II is, of course, also a very physical movie featuring some very violent and frankly bonkers action sequences.
"Some of the fight scenes are mad!" Mescal laughs. "I loved all that. I’ve always wanted to do a movie like this, I’ve always dreamed of it. I was brought up playing with fake swords with my friends and now I’m a 28-year-old man in a costume and you have all the infrastructure around you to play, essentially. It was really enjoyable."
Ridley Scott had been planning a sequel to Gladiator ever since the wild success of the first movie back in 2000. But the veteran director couldn’t find the right story or the right leading man to take up where Russell Crowe had left off.
Then, like everyone else, he spotted Mescal in Normal People and something clicked, with the director going as far as saying that Mescal reminded him of Richard Harris, who, in one of his final ever roles, played Lucius’s grandfather Marcus Aurelius in the first Gladiator.
"That was a cool comparison, my favourite," smiles Mescal. "It helps that Richard Harris was also my grandfather in terms of the story. Working with Ridley Scott is something and then he compares you to Richard Harris… it magnifies it somewhat."
The scale of the nine-month production was enormous and the new film had a rumoured budget of up to $300,000,000. Mescal’s first day on set was in Malta to shoot the opening battle sequence, which sees a fleet of Roman galleons attack the coastal battlements of another territory set to fall under the empire’s control.
"I knew this was a huge production from day one, that opening sequence with that battle," Mescal says. "We shot that over nine days so the biggest set I was on was the first day so it helped to know that this was what we were dealing with. You try and get used to it as much as you can."
In Gladiator II we see Lucius face off with a troupe of berserk baboons, a rampaging giant rhino, and even man-eating sharks but the biggest beast in this movie is Denzel Washington.
He plays the charming and wily powerbroker Macrinus. Dressed in gold embroidered finery, he’s like a superfly Machiavelli and is a real force of nature.
"Denzel was fantastic," Mescal says. "He does so much, it’s such a big performance and I really enjoyed playing scenes with him because of the way our characters had to approach each other - we are polar opposites.
"He’s in an environment where he can be expressive and manipulative, whereas Lucius has to be stoic and still. It’s such an interesting place to put two intelligent characters in conflict with each other. I could watch Denzel read the phonebook."
Mescal has spoken in the past about how he wishes to protect his privacy but Gladiator II is set to propel him to an even greater level of fame and compromise his private life even further.
"I assume so," he says. "It will become more difficult but I’ll just have to be more rigorous with how I protect those things."
Gladiator II isn’t even in cinemas yet but the seemingly unstoppable Ridley Scott, who turns 87 in a few weeks, has already hinted that there may well be a third instalment of the sword and sandal epic.
"He has, hasn’t he?" laughs Mescal. "I’m up for it."
Right now, however, he has more immediate plans. Ireland are playing New Zealand’s All-Blacks in rugby and straight after our interview, Mescal will be swapping GAA HQ for Irish rugby HQ at the Aviva.
"I’m going with my brother," he says. "I cannot wait, I cannot wait."
Before he leaves, one more question: you’ve said that being asked to lead a Ridley Scott film was a "pinch-me moment." Are you still pinching yourself?
"Absolutely," Mescal says. "I mean, last night at the Dublin premiere was another example of how mad it all is. I’m always worried about saying ‘I can’t get over it’ all the time because it night sound disingenuous but l am constantly pinching myself in situations like this.
"If I stop pinching myself I’ll need a good kick up the arse!"
Gladiator II is in cinemas on 15 November
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