“And the one thing that upset me was that I was in the kitchen, I remember my mum looking at the videos and she was getting upset. Isn’t that devastating?
“I was like, Oh, it’s funny to us – my brother, me, my sister – because we know that this is the way the internet works. It’s hilarious.”
He added: “If it was true, it’d be f****** bad, but as a rumour, it’s funny. Then I was like, oh, if you’re a mother, her impulse is to come out and be like: ‘He wouldn’t do this’.”
The TikTok users alleged that the star of the forthcoming Ridley Scott film Gladiator II would pick up women in bars at night and then sprint away from them while on walks the next morning. The rumours became rife on social media and spawned subsequent memes about the actor.
Speaking to GQ, Mescal said he has learnt to draw “certain lines in the sand now” about his personal life “that are just going to be impenetrable for the benefit of my own sanity”.
He said: “I mean, the speculation has been kind of mad for the last X amount of years … I’m not comfortable inviting any access into that part of my life.
“How I am in my private life is so precious to me because I get very little of it, and it might be public interest, but it’s not public-obligated information.”
Beatles biopic
The Oscar-nominated actor also said he would “love to be involved” in the upcoming Sam Mendes biopics about The Beatles, in which he was rumoured to be playing Paul McCartney. Mescal insisted there was “nothing set in stone” yet.
Discussing his upcoming blockbuster, Gladiator II, the star said it was unlike anything he had ever done.
He put on 8.1kg of muscle for the role of Lucius, son of Maximus, and described him as a “deeply un-entitled” character to play.
“He doesn’t feel entitled to the world, so he’s just scrapping. He has no sense of pride, which I think is a fun character trait to play,” Mescal explained.
The actor admitted he did not attempt to contact Russell Crowe, who famously played the gladiator Maximus in the original 2000 film, saying he “wouldn’t know what to say” to him, but added: “An amazing career like Russell has had wasn’t built by just Gladiator.”
The film, which is scheduled to be released in cinemas on November 14 in New Zealand, is intended “for a massive amount of people”, Mescal said.
“That is the target of this film. You can call a spade a spade. That’s what I want. That’s what the studio wants. We want to make something great that lots of people go to.”
- Additional reporting by NZ Herald
