HAMNET Star Paul Mescal for British GQ Magazine

Pin
HAMNET star Paul Mescal covers the February 2026 issue of British GQ magazine photographed by Elizaveta Porodina and styled by Hannes Hetta.

In five short years, he’s become one of Hollywood’s most coveted leading men – a singular blend of masculinity and vulnerability. In roles from AFTERSUN to NORMAL PEOPLE, he showed that he could paint characters in infinitesimally small strokes. Now, with HAMNET and a slate of Beatles biopics, he’s adjusting the volume. But how long can he resist the role the world wants him to play?

Pin

Pin

“I think it’s super reductive as an audience member to go, ‘That person is too much this to do that.’ Because of the internet, we have these compartments that we sit actors into, whereas 50 years ago, we didn’t do that, because we couldn’t see them all the time. But we have this idea of, Oh, they’ve got a face for comedy, or they’re a sad actor, or they’re too hot to do this, or they’re not hot enough to do that. And it’s like, if we’re boiling it down to aesthetics, and aesthetics are dictating what parts people should play, then forget about the cinema-going experience. That just sounds incredibly dull to me… It’s like, we expect this person to be like this.”

[Photo Credit: Elizaveta Porodina – Video Credit: GQ/YouTube]

• Editorials
• Elizaveta Porodina
• GQ
• GQ UK
• Hannes Hetta
• Magazines
• Paul Mescal