All of Us Strangers star Paul Mescal on suffering ‘blind panic’ while filming intimate sex scenes with Andrew Scott

Paul Mescal has spoken of his insecurities as an actor while filming intimate scenes, saying he sometimes feels as if he’s in a ‘blind panic’ on set.

The actor, 28, had to do raunchy sex scenes with Fleabag‘s Andrew Scott for his role as Harry in All of Us Strangers.

The film follows Andrew Scott’s lonely screenwriter Adam as he encounters the spirits of his dead parents in director Andrew Haigh’s latest film. 

While Paul has a wealth of experience as an actor and while All of Us Strangers was nominated for an impressive six awards at the BAFTAs last Sunday, he admits he can still feel very vulnerable while performing.

Irish star Paul is seen playing out some very intimate moments as Harry with Andrew’s Adam in the film. 

Paul told All of Us Strangers writer and director Andrew Haigh during an interview for AnOther Magazine: ‘I feel like sometimes, though, it’s blind panic. Because I think acting has the capacity to be the most embarrassing thing that any of us ever do. 

‘And it can be in an instant. I’ve seen actors that I really admire do bad, embarrassing things. 

‘When you’re in a scene where that’s heightened – say, if your body is on show or there’s an emotional weight to a scene – weirdly, if you’re working with good actors, you can just throw a bubble around yourselves and white-knuckle it. 

‘Andrew Scott is just outrageously good.’

Paul went on to praise his co-star Andrew, saying their closeness in real-life allowed for an intimacy and trust on screen that he’s only had a couple of times with other people, being Normal People’s Daisy Edgar-Jones and Saoirse Ronan in Foe.

The screen star said their acting abilities go beyond talent, adding that they have a ‘well of emotionality where all you have to do when you’re in scenes with them is sit there and listen’. 

Paul posed for an arty photoshoot for the magazine, posing in sporting attire for a variety of photographs.

It comes after Andrew admitted he barely rehearsed his raunchy sex scenes with Paul while working with an intimacy coordinator ahead of his latest role in All Of Us Strangers. 

The film is an adaptation of Japanese author Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel, Strangers. 

While an explicit sexual encounter with Harry, played by Irish heartthrob Paul has dominated the commentary surrounding its release, Scott insists they both adopted an organic approach towards its development. 

Speaking to Attitude, Andrew, 47, also credited the film’s intimacy coordinator for mediating any concerns regarding the graphic nature of their sex scene.   

‘Sex is just communication, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘It’s just physical communication rather than verbal communication… We didn’t over rehearse it. We knew that those scenes, particularly the early ones, had to have a sort of frisson.

And we had an intimacy coordinator, which can be very helpful for the simple reason that if you’re able to talk to somebody about your fears or what you want to show, what you don’t want to show, or what you think it should be and what the narrative of the storyline is, you have that base of safety. 

‘But chemistry is a really interesting thing. You’re basically just listening to see what the other person is doing physically in the same way you would in a dialogue scene. 

‘And you can talk about that as much as you like, but until you’re actually there, it’s not alive in that way, so it’s just about listening, but just listening with your body, basically.’ 

The actor, best known for playing James Moriarty in BBC drama Sherlock and the unnamed ‘Hot Priest’ in Phoebe Waller-Bridge comedy Fleabag, publicly acknowledged his own sexuality for the first time in 2013. 

And Scott admits being an openly gay man in the modern age is a ‘wonderful gift’ that has helped him establish firm friendships within the queer community. 

He said: ‘I think it’s such a wonderful thing to me. It’s an extraordinary gift to my life and just to be able to see the real beauty in being gay is completely wonderful. 

‘The older I get, just the more I feel so lucky to have been born gay and that pervades my life in the sense of all my friendships. I have so many amazing queer friends in my life now that I just adore.’ 

He added: ‘I feel such a huge sense of camaraderie with other queer people now, and without sounding too hippy about it, I feel like I just want to spread that love and positivity in our community because we’ve come such a long way and it’s important that we are kind and look out for each other, and celebrate how uniquely different and how f**king wonderful that can be.

‘It feels like such an extraordinary privilege to be able to play a character like this. And I wanted to give as much of myself because it was cathartic for me,’ he said. 

‘I never thought that I would be able to watch a film like this, let alone be at the centre of it, so I wanted to be able to take that opportunity to express myself in some way. 

‘Why pick an imaginary backstory from somewhere else? I wanted to bring as much of myself as I could, because I feel like that’s what the audience is going to relate to the most.’