Everything about the big screen's new Gladiator radiates future Hollywood icon status for Paul Mescal.
He's come a long way from Normal People which had women in their hoards swooning and he's since dazzled in And Other Strangers and even had Angelina Jolie watch him in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Given Paul's immense charisma and talent, perhaps the most surprising thing about the 'Irish Brando', as he's been dubbed, is that he only got into show business by accident.
Finding drama by accident
At school in Maynooth, Co Kildare, he was known as a sporty 'jock' - feted for his skill at Gaelic football.
But aged 16, he was compelled to audition for the school musical - it was compulsory for all pupils - and it was that performance that completely changed the course of his life.
In an early interview, he said: 'I was a 16-year-old boy and wanted to be perceived as cool by my friends.
'I know for a fact I probably wouldn't have auditioned because of the masculinity that I'd been prescribed by being on a sports team. But since we all had to audition, I was, like, "Well, I may as well put my best foot forward".'
It was soon afterwards that he auditioned for the school play - a production of Phantom Of The Opera. His history teacher Sinead O'Carroll, who was also involved in the play, was blown away.
She said: 'He was a natural from day one. It was 2012, the production was The Phantom Of The Opera and he was the Phantom. He needed no instruction, no coaching, he just turned up and assumed the role. He became the Phantom. He was so, well, professional really. I'd never seen this from a pupil before.
'Even when it came to the love scenes, he didn't laugh or giggle the way most young lads would. He just took it in his stride like it was the most natural thing in the world.
'Up until that point he'd been known throughout the school for his sporting prowess. But after Phantom, he started thinking about acting seriously, that he could make a career of it.'
Paul considered a very different career
He considered joining the Army as a teen but, discussing it with a careers guidance counsellor, was asked if he wouldn't rather go to drama school and pursue his burgeoning passion for acting instead.
'I think had I lived in London or LA or New York, there would have been a clearer kind of understanding that you can go down this road for your job.
'It took me a second to come to that conclusion living in Maynooth,' he said.
Studying drama
Paul, one of three children born to retired Garda officer Dearbhla and retired teacher Paul, went on to study drama at the Lir Academy.
His father was always involved in amateur dramatics and singing, and his sister Nell is a successful singer.
His acting teacher Hilary Wood said he was 'ostentatiously talented' from the beginning. Even before he graduated from the Lir, he was cast as the lead in The Great Gatsby at the Gate Theatre in Dublin.
His former history teacher Sinead O'Carroll came to see him. She said: 'He was only 21 at the time but he shone. I saw him afterwards and said, "You're going to be famous".'
How right she was. Two years later, he was cast as Connell in Normal People and when the show was broadcast in 2020, during the pandemic, everything changed.
Paul's big break
Normal People, based on Sally Rooney's novel about teenage lovers, won him a TV Bafta for best actor and became the BBC's most-streamed series of 2020.
And all the frankly but tenderly depicted sex in the drama - in which he starred alongside Daisy Edgar-Jones - turned him into the nation's boyfriend.
When, in an interview, Paul explained how much he deplored the toxicity of men like Andrew Tate and how he valued the importance of consent, a sex symbol for a new era was born.
But the timing meant fame came just at the point where he was living alone in London in lockdown and Paul has said he struggled with the attention.
He quit social media and tried to keep as low a profile as possible.
Edging towards Gladiator
He was Oscar-nominated for his heartbreaking performance as a troubled young dad in the 2022 film Aftersun, and was set for a career in independent movies before being asked to meet with Ridley Scott on Zoom to discuss Gladiator II.
The two of them talked about the film for 15 minutes and about Gaelic football for ten. Scott saw in Paul the charisma of his original Gladiator, Russell Crowe, and a hint of Irish hellraiser Richard Harris, who played Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the original film.
Paul said that he 'blacked out' and yelled in joy when his agents told him that the role was his. Plans to make a spy movie A Spy By Nature were dropped.
In January, Paul was downbeat on the fame that the film will bring, which will inevitably be more intense than anything he has experienced so far.
He said in an interview that he would 'just get too bored' if he couldn't lead a normal life, adding that he didn't want to stop 'going out or meeting someone in a bar or getting drunk at a party'.
Family first
There is no sign of that happening. Paul tends to surround himself with his family - brother Donnacha, sister Nell and his parents - on his 'big nights'.
His siblings came with him to the Vanity Fair Oscars party two years ago. Nell was his date at the Baftas, too. Both siblings and his parents were there at the London premiere on Wednesday night.
Old friend Aoibheann McCann acted with Paul in The Great Gatsby months before he hit the big time with Normal People and concurs that he's still the man she got to know.
She says: 'I saw him recently and he's still the same Paul. His success hasn't changed him. I'd put that down as well to his family. I wouldn't say they're normal because that wouldn't do them justice.
'They're just very grounded people who check in with each other all the time to see how everyone is doing.'
As for his romantic life, Paul had a long romance with the musician Phoebe Bridgers and is now dating singer Gracie Abrams.
