Paul Mescal and more | Here Comes the Sun

Welcome, I'm Tracy Smith and this is Here Comes the Sun, a closer look at some of the people, places and things we bring you every weekend on Sunday morning. Actor Paul Mesco has made a name for himself with his critically acclaimed performances of emotionally complex characters. At just 28, he's already been nominated as Best Actor for an Academy Award in 2023 for the film After Sun and for an Emmy in 2020 for the series Normal People. Now he's at the helm of Gladiator 2, which is produced by Paramount Pictures, a division of CBS's parent company. It's the biggest project of his career, as he explained to Seth Doan. Ridley Scott says he was so impressed with Mesco that he cast the young actor after just a 30-minute Zoom call. Got a phone call and they were like, you're gonna be in Gladiator 2. You're thinking what? That's kind of massively life-altering news to receive. Yeah, of course it is. I think there's something that comes with the legacy of Ridley Scott, this film. Later in the show, Paul Mesco explains why he didn't watch the original Gladiator film before filming Gladiator 2. How much did you refer to the original Gladiator? You refer to it, well, I've seen it probably about three or four times throughout my life, teenage life and early 20s. And then when I was cast, I was kind of faced with the decision, do I go back and revisit it? And I didn't. You didn't want to watch it? I didn't want to watch it again because I think the script obviously references the genetic life of Lucius and where he comes from. But that work was done for me by the script and what the legacy of the first film gives you. I think my focus and my job essentially was like, what are the differences? Then a group of Parkinson's disease patients have found an unlikely form of therapy, rock climbing. Parkinson's can impact coordination, mobility and balance, but many participants have found rock climbing helps them better manage their symptoms. Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes introduces us to one man who says climbing keeps him on his toes and fingers. So what can't you do that you used to be able to do? That I used to be able to do? Type. Type? Yes. Oh, dexterity. Yes, exactly. Fine motor skills have kind of really suffered dramatically. But once he gets on the wall, you called yourself Spider-Man. Yeah. I mean, some people say I climb like a monkey or I get my finger strength moving. That's all coming up right here on Here Comes the Sun. Actor Paul Meskell fell in love with acting at just 16 years old, starring in a school production of Phantom of the Opera. He says ever since he's been chasing the high he felt as a sporty kid, showing off his dramatic talents to family and friends for the first time. Here's Seth Doan. There's this weird sensation about landing into the city that just, I don't know, it just makes me feel calm. Irish actor Paul Meskell was not going to get much of that calm on this stop. The Dublin premiere of Gladiator 2. He was here to promote the highly anticipated film. We met earlier in the day at Trinity College, where not so long ago he'd studied acting. There's a little bit of really enjoying it, but part of it also hanging on for dear life. What do you mean by that? Just the size is something that I haven't experienced before. I also just haven't led a huge amount of films. Now he's leading this huge film. In Gladiator 2, he plays Lucius, who learns along with the audience of his connection to Russell Crowe's character from the original blockbuster. Are you not entertained? Nearly 25 years later, director Ridley Scott is back for the sequel. This is an epic film to watch. What is it like to be in, to be at the middle of? I would say equally epic. Strike the moment. Last night, time for a dance. The 28-year-old has already been nominated for an Oscar, playing a single dad in After Sun. I told you, I love to dance. Are you going to start kissing me again? And an Emmy for his role in Normal People. Aside from the critical acclaim, it turned him into a Gen Z heartthrob practically overnight. Ridley Scott says he was so impressed with Meskel that he cast the young actor after just a 30-minute Zoom call. Got a phone call and they were like, you're gonna be in Gladiator 2. You're thinking what? That's kind of massively life-altering news to receive. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, of course it is. I think there's something that comes with the legacy of Ridley Scott, this film. The first Gladiator won five Academy Awards. In this incarnation from Paramount Pictures, a division of CBS's parent company, Meskel stars alongside Denzel Washington. Did you hear that crowd? You have something. I knew it from the start. Did you now? Yes. As an actor, are you taking mental notes when you work with someone like Washington? When you go back to bed in the evening, you're like, how is he doing this? How is he doing that? Give me an example. Every scene I did with him was never how I expected it to go, which is the dream. It was very thrilling to be five feet in front of a space watching him do that. Meskel has star power of his own. Yeah, we have now a sea of people following us. He's proving to be a singular actor. At least until a lookalike contest. We had to show the real Meskel. I mean, I feel like it's easy to do a parody of me. I mean, like, just take a look at the photos and I think it's pretty. The shorts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those shorts are the uniform of his other love, Gaelic football. This athlete bulked up, putting on 18 pounds of muscle. The role is so different. You're often playing these kind of softer, almost tormented, shy characters. It's a major transition for you. Yeah, it is. I think going back to the sport that I played before, there was definitely a desire to make a more physically informed choice and Lucius represented the perfect opportunity for that to happen. Normal people, his big break was shot at his alma mater. In it, Meskel portrays the sharp nuanced emotions of a student, angst, torment, desire. I think it's exposed an audience to me. That job essentially allowed me to prove to people that I can act. Couldn't I say it was you that was seducing me? I was trying to. It's not been that long since you made that sausage commercial. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. I always wanted to do a bit of travel myself. That's it. I'm going to travel. It's incredible, really. Yeah, no. 2018 or something. No, that covered my rent for the year. I was absolutely delighted by it. He'd started acting at 16 and a production of Phantom of the Opera changed his trajectory. I think I'm still chasing that feeling again. Like nothing has ever really come close to that feeling. Your high school Phantom of the Opera production versus Gladiator 2. It sounds absolutely bizarre. I think because it felt physically dangerous in my body to be exposed to an audience of people who knew me as somebody who played sports. The adrenaline was like extraordinary. It begins. Childhood, he says, was pretty standard. My mum's a policeman. One of my dad's a teacher. Both retired now. But he credits that upbringing with helping him navigate today's pressures. This is new for me. Really? This part. But you're used to attention at this point? Within reason. How's it going? On campus, at times, this star was as struck as the students. Are you all in college here? Yeah. Meskel is hoping to maintain some distance, some mystery as an actor. No, but I don't want you to see me like that in there. To be able to convincingly inhabit such varied roles. You don't want an audience to know you innately. What do you think your relationship is with fame? Ever-changing, I think. Perhaps that's because it's all changing so quickly for him. Instead of dispersing during our interview inside, the crowd we soon discovered had multiplied. And we got to witness Paul Meskel in a role for which there is no rehearsal. Thanks for all coming out. This is bananas. And no script. I have to go finish an interview and... We have to get to class. You have to go to class, yeah. You should all go back to school. All right, see you later. Jesus. Up next, an exclusive excerpt from Seth Doan's chat with Paul Meskel. Something you can only see right here on Here Comes the Sun. Stay with us. As promised, here's more from Seth Doan's interview with Paul Meskel. You knew this film would change things for you. I would say confidently that more people will see this film than saw After Sun, for example, an independent film. But I think with that comes... That's what I mean by the life-altering aspect of that. How do you prepare for that as an actor, emotionally, personally? You don't really prepare for that as an actor. I think you prepare for that as a human being. You kind of try and get your... It's an interesting question because you can't necessarily prepare for that. You spend your whole life preparing for these kind of huge events. But not like everybody has a different scale of what that is. But you can't necessarily sit down and go, well, when this happens, I'm going to do this. It's a multi-pronged thing. It's like, how were you raised? What relationship do you have to the people that you love around you? Because they're ultimately going to be the cornerstones of what helps you hopefully thrive or even survive something like that happening. How much did you refer to the original Gladiator? You refer to... Well, I've seen it probably about three or four times throughout my teenage life and early 20s. And then when I was cast, I was kind of faced with the decision, do I go back and revisit it? And I didn't. You didn't want to watch it? I didn't want to watch it again because I think the script obviously references the genetic life of Lucius and where he comes from. But that work was done for me by the script and what the legacy of the first film gives you. I think my focus and my job essentially was like, what are the differences? Where does Lucius differ from, say, Maximus? Or what are his kind of... What are the things that make him the individual that he is? Because that's my job. That's the bit that I have to carve out. So you go off social media, you kind of try to... It's just those little like barriers, which I think are important. And they're not kind of... They're not meant to be a fronting. They're just meant to be little barriers of protection for yourself so that you can navigate a long career where there is at least some degree of mystery about who I am as Paul, so that I can go about my work and portray these other characters without people having an acute understanding of who I am. You think there's value to that as an actor? Oh, 100%. To people not knowing you as well. Within reason, yeah. I think you have to naturally lean into the fact that people want to know bits about you and you decide what you're happy to share and you also decide what you're not happy to share and that's just your line in the sand. It's quite simple in theory and then putting it into practice can sometimes be difficult, but I think it's becoming a little bit easier. After the break, an uphill battle against Parkinson's disease. Welcome back. More than 10 million people worldwide live with Parkinson's disease for which there is no cure. One man's search for an exercise routine to ease his condition led him to rock climbing, creating an outlet for Parkinson's patients who have lost so much to feel a sense of accomplishment. It's a story close to the heart for Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes. We were amazed at what we were seeing on a sweltering summer's day when these people with Parkinson's disease began rock climbing on the Carderock Cliffs of Maryland. Yes, rock climbing. If you look at these cliffs, you can't imagine anyone could climb them. So you're not babying them? No. At all? No, I definitely give tough love. It's all part of their therapy, says Molly Kupka. She's the no-nonsense instructor. Nice job. And cheerleader for this community of courageous climbers. There's a lot of balance involved, mobility involves strength, cardio, and then there's the cognitive part where you have to look at the hold and figure out how to get your body to move to get to that hold. Nice right hand there, John. Find any, yes, that looks like a good foot. She started this program called UpEnding Parkinson's as a non-profit 12 years ago. How often do they fall? Because falling is definitely part of climbing. You're always on the rope. There we go. You fall, but you don't fall far. I'm going to say if you're not falling, you're not trying hard enough. Oh, really? They never really fall because they wear a harness that provides a layer of safety. There's no cure for Parkinson's, which usually affects mobility, coordination, balance, even speech. I'm a 59-year-old retired cardiac anesthesiologist. About 12 years ago, I retired. Because of Parkinson's? Because of Parkinson's. John Lesson was diagnosed in 2003. He was once an all-around athlete. There you go. Good job, Dad. Very good. His daughter, Brittany, watched his steady decline until he discovered climbing walls as high as 60 feet. My dad has a hard time walking across the room, but he can make it to the top of this giant wall. There you go. Come on, John. There's a lot that he's had to give up because of his disease. But this is something that he found through it, which is really cool. I get to the top and I feel like I've conquered something. And I feel like the wall can't beat me. I can beat the wall. Good job. Full disclosure, this story is very personal to me. We're ready. My late husband, Aaron Latham, had Parkinson's and boxed as a way to fight the symptoms, as he explained on Sunday morning in 2015. So what does boxing do for you? Boxing's just the opposite of Parkinson's. Everything is designed, instead of to shrink you, everything's designed to pump you up. He talked about how it makes you feel small. And when you can accomplish something like this, you feel big. Right, it makes you feel very small. You make small movements, you're hunched over. This makes you feel like you can accomplish the world. It was Lesson who first had that big idea to use rock climbing as a therapy for Parkinson's. I wanted to do a big movement exercise, and I found Molly at this gym. Lesson proposed the idea to Molly Kupka, who runs the Sport Rock Climbing Center in Alexandria, Virginia. She thought it was worth a try. One of the symptoms with Parkinson's is that you lose the ability to plan ahead. And that is so this sport. I mean, you have to plan where you're going to put your foot next or your hand next. I wish I could go into the brain and see what's happening while people climb. When I don't climb for some periods of time, I get worse. Some people with Parkinson's, like Vivek Puri, get dyskinesia, involuntary jerking motions. Puri says he's usually unaware of his. He runs a home building company in the D.C. area and was only 38 when he found out he had Parkinson's. So what can't you do that you used to be able to do? That I used to be able to do? Type. Type? Yes. Oh, dexterity. Yes, exactly. Fine motor skills have kind of really suffered dramatically. But once he gets on the wall. You called yourself Spider-Man. Yeah. I think some people say I climb like a monkey or I get my finger strength moving, which is my fine motor skills. Maybe not back, but kind of keeps that in motion. I was watching Vivek and his leg was kind of tremoring, and yet he could put it where he wanted to. And that hand would go and confidently grab and have the strength to hold on when normally they were shaking. There's no evidence climbing slows the progress of Parkinson's. But Kupka joined forces with Marymount University last year to study patients climbing for the first time. Ready, set, go. We have people literally walking and carrying weights, you know, walking and looking. So multitasking. The study found that in so many words, if you climb, you may walk better. That was Mark DeMulder in those videos, a musician and former director of the National Geospatial Program. He doesn't need a study to prove what climbing does for him. Keep looking for feet like that. Yeah, Mark, good work. It allows me to say, all right, take that, Parkinson's. I'm doing this. It just makes me feel stronger. And I don't know. You're fighting it. I'm fighting it. I'm doing something about it. You're punching it in the face. Yeah. Good job. Many of the climbers have become friends who climb together several times a week. You did fabulous. You led the way, John. And they become a support group, Parkinson's pals who encourage each other. And I reach the top. I can turn around and look and wave and see my wife and my friends. And that's the reward. It's really wonderful. And everybody's clapping. Yeah. Saying, good job, Mark. There's no real understanding of how these people can do this. But you can certainly understand why. It takes so many things that a lot of people with Parkinson's you would think could not do. That you can zip up that wall is something to behold. Thank you. I mean, it's something that... You get emotional. It's best to be good at something. I'm Tracey Smith. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you here next time on Here Comes the Sun.