As we edge ever closer to the UK release date of All of Us Strangers, Paul Mescal has revealed “the most illicit moment” between him and co-star Andrew Scott and, spoiler alert, it’s not sex.
We have seen the trailer, the steamy press shots and have been teased about the undeniable chemistry between Scott and Mescal, who respectively play Adam and Harry, in Andrew Haigh’s psychological adaptation of a Japanese ghost story, Strangers.
Now, Mescal has divulged that it was in fact his “eyes looking up to Andrew” before he ‘went down on him’, that is the most illicit moment of the film in an interview with Dazed.
When the journalist described Scott and Mescal’s eye contact in the film as “so sexy”, saying he “couldn’t look away”, Mescal responded: “That’s the bit that scared me. When I saw it for the first time in the audience, I asked Andrew if he remembered me doing that.”
The actor continued: “The most illicit moment is not actually the sex, but my eyes looking up to Andrew when I’m about to go down on him.”
Mescal has previously opened up about his on-screen romance with Scott and described it as “such a great privilege” to be a part of.
During an interview with Variety’s Actors on Actors he said: “To play love is such a great privilege, I think. And to do it with Andrew Scott, who’s the king of playing love. It’s just innate in his being both as an actor and as a human.
“But to kind of go into scenes with him is one of the greatest honours of my career to date.”
In the same interview he discussed the creation of the film’s raunchier moments to be both “tender and hot”, in a Hollywood landscape that is often starved of LGBTQIA+ sex scenes.
“I’m probably not equipped to answer that fully in terms of what that actually means; all I can talk about is my experience with filming those [scenes]. And the attempt to make something that felt both, as you said, trying to make something that felt hot and sexy but also that doesn’t work in a narrative context if it’s not motivating the characters,” he explained.
“Like you have Andrew Scott’s character, Adam, who is in his mid-40s, who has a difficult relationship with his relationship to sex. Harry serves as a safe landing space for him to re-explore his sexuality. Which I think is really moving and really sexy.”
All of Us Strangers follows Adam, a screenwriter who is pulled back into his childhood home “where he discovers that his long-dead parents are both living and look the same age as the day they died over 30 years ago”.
At the same time, Adam falls in love with his “mysterious” neighbour Harry.
Also starring Claire Foy and Jamie Bell as Adam’s parents, the film has received universal critical acclaim – it currently holds a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
In addition, All of Us Strangers received six BAFTA nominations including Outstanding British Film, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor and Casting. This is Haigh’s first nomination as a director. The fantasy-drama also scored Golden Globes nominations that unfortunately failed to convert into wins.
All of Us Strangers was released in the US on 22 December and is headed straight to UK screens on 26 January.
Watch the full trailer below.
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