If you haven’t seen Gladiator II yet, consider this your sign to do so. Nearly a quarter of a century since the original film scooped up five Academy Awards , Ridley Scott ‘s brawny, at times violent, spectacular sequel has pinned its hopes on its star Paul Mescal —who plays a warrior prince enslaved to the Roman empire—to do the same.
Mescal’s billing has seen moviegoers who usually avoid films with combat sequences flock to the cinemas. Chalk it up to the 28-year-old’s laidback Irish charm, it’s quite the feat to attract soft hearts to watch 150-minutes of gory battles with baboons, sharks and rhinos. And so, when Mescal showed up at the Gladiator II Los Angeles premiere’s afterparty with rumored girlfriend American singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams , well, you could almost hear the sighs of disappointment from Sydney to the Colosseum.
The couple seemingly confirmed their relationship some months back when they were spotted cozying up for a walk around the streets of Mayfair in London. Mescal was seen in the crowd at Taylor Swift’s Eras concert in Miami in October, of which Abrams, 24, was the opening act. The couple were also spotted on an alleged date night in New York city recently. But apart from this picture where the couple are arm-in-arm, don’t expect to hear much more about the relationship, for Mescal is hell bent on keeping his private life, private. (Why do you think we heard so little about him being reportedly engaged to Phoebe Bridgers , and reportedly dating Sophie Wilde and Angelina Jolie ?)
“I mean, the speculation has been kind of mad for the last x amount of years,” Mescal told GQ . “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.
“I’ve learned that there’s certain lines in the sand now for me that just are going to be impenetrable for the benefit of my own sanity, but also the benefit of my work,” he continued. “If you don’t have those boundaries up in terms of lines in the sand in regards to your private life, people know way too much about you and then they can’t invest in the imagined landscape of your character because they know what your favorite thing to eat for breakfast is.”
Gladiator II is in cinemas now.
