Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor cannot do an interview together for their new film, The History of Sound, without cracking each other up. It’s an affliction with no cure. Director Oliver Hermanus called them out after the film’s premiere at Cannes. “It was a really strong bond,” he said of his leading men, “and they were naughty.” That naughtiness has not subsided — they laugh at each other’s voices, their postures, their anecdotes. They can scarcely get through a single question without surrendering to giggles and asides; whatever’s been posed to them is an afterthought to their friendship. When Mescal mutters through his words, O’Connor barks, “What?!” not once but twice, both of them dissolving into incoherence.
Over the past handful of years, O’Connor and Mescal have proven themselves generational talents specializing in open, emotional performances. They are “serious” actors — pushing their bodies (Challengers, Gladiator 2), accents (God’s Own Country, All of Us Strangers), and abilities (speaking Italian in La Chimera, dancing in Carmen) — but not serious people, as evidenced from their comparing poses on the red carpet or riffing back and forth mid-red-carpet interview. There is a rare pleasure in watching them be publicly silly, even if only to each other. Neither is ever this boisterous or silly onscreen, but that sense of play courses (though quietly) through much of their work.
The History of Sound is a movie about that which goes unsaid — stolen glances, long silences, staid pronouncements of care and concern — the complete opposite of the duo’s press tour. They almost appear to have more discernible chemistry when acting as themselves rather than Lionel and David. As the muted film builds to its depressing and inevitable conclusion — would either of these guys ever star in a romance that works out? — their real-life chemistry makes it feel like maybe it did work out for these guys in the end.
“I was a long admirer of Josh,” Mescal says in one interview with a degree of earnestness, before adding, “long, long, long” to play up their age difference. (Mescal is 29 and O’Connor is 35.) Frequently, the two will play up the minor age difference, with Mescal rolling his eyes every time O’Connor gripes about something timely and trendy. As O’Connor laughs through yet another question, his co-star gets briefly serious, adding that the industry is “competitive,” but “it’s all a lot more palatable if you can admire someone’s work rather than be in competition, and I felt that from Josh straight away.” O’Connor agrees, adding that because of the deep well of emotion on display in the film, they found it easier to just be “quite light” with their approach to each other. “Cheeky chaps,” Mescal says. “Cheeky chaps,” O’Connor affirms.
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The History of Sound is not the first film of the year to market itself around the goofy chemistry between its male co-stars in a movie otherwise upsetting if not outright tragic. Warfare crammed its cast into interview after interview, putting a fake mustache on Michael Gandolfini to lob softballs at his co-stars while they curl up in hysterics. For The Long Walk, Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson played up the texture of their newfound friendship — bonding over basketball and film — while photo diaries from the set show the boys playing around with each other. It’s not that these sets had to be as miserable as the films in question — it probably made everyone’s job much easier that they were not — but the bulk of the promotion for these films seems to be that everyone had a good time making it. They all came away with friends and inside jokes. Never mind the horrors of what you see onscreen so long as you know the real Long Walk was the friends you made along the way. For Mescal and O’Connor, their paired charisma feels more like a promise: These two guys aren’t sick of each other yet, and neither are we.
