The actor Paul Mescal has hit out at critics who have drawn comparisons between The History of Sound, a gay romance in which he stars opposite Josh O’Connor, and Ang Lee’s landmark westernBrokeback Mountain.
Speaking at a press conference in Cannes the day after the film’s premiere, Mescal – who followed a supporting performance in Andrew Haigh’s acclaimed gay ghost story All of Us Strangers with playing the lead in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II – said he believes cinema is “moving away” from alpha male roles.
In The History of Sound, directed by Oliver Hermanus, whose Kurosawa remakeLivingscored an Oscar nomination for Bill Nighy three years ago, Mescal and O’Connor play musicologists who travel to New England just after the first world war to record the folk songs of their rural countrymen.
“It’s ever-shifting,” said Mescal. “I think maybe in cinema we’re moving away from the traditional, alpha, leading male characters. I don’t think the film is defining or attempting to redefine masculinity, I think it is being very subjective to the relationship between [their characters] Lionel and David.”
Asked whether he was pleased by comparisons some critics had drawn with Brokeback Mountain, in which Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal star as ranchers who fall in love in 1950s Wyoming, Mescal rejected the idea.
“I personally don’t see the parallels at all with Brokeback Mountain, other than we spent a little time in a tent,” he said.
Lee’s drama, which controversially lost out on a best picture Oscar to Crash in 2005, is, continued Mescal, “a beautiful film but it is dealing with the idea of repression … I find those comparisons relatively lazy and frustrating, but for the most part I think the relationship I have to the film is born out of the fact that it’s a celebration between these men’s love and not the repression of their sexuality.”
Mescal then praised his absent co-star O’Connor, who made his name in Francis Lee’s queer dramaGod’s Own Countryand is now finishing production on Steven Spielberg’s next film, calling him “one of the easiest persons” to establish a rapport with.
“Josh has a great gift,” he said. “The person who the general public sees is very similar to the one that we know and I think that’s very difficult for an actor in today’s age to do.
“We’ve known each other for about five years and we were definitely friendly so that foundation of safety and play was there, but that relationship really deepened in the three or four weeks we were filming.”
The actor said their bond was further deepened by a shared love of the hard candy Jolly Ranchers.
“It sounds kind of coy but Josh is just incredibly silly to me,” said Mescal. “We got fixated on this diet drink during the shooting process but we would also become fixated on having eight Jolly Ranchers a day … There’s a microcosm to our relationship that I think of Josh and I think of jolly ranchers.”
The History of Sound was warmly greeted at its Cannes premiere on Wednesday evening, although with not quite the same rapturous reception as the later film to screen that evening,Sentimental Value.
O’Connor will also be seen in another film premiering on Friday at the festival, Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind. Later this year Mescal will star as William Shakespeare opposite Jesse Buckley in Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet.