When a trailer for Gladiator II was released last week, the buzz about Paul Mescal became a din once more. If the unassuming Irishman was on the radar before, Ridley Scott's sequel is about to send the Maynooth man into celebrity orbit.
How the 28-year-old will handle it has yet to be seen as although Paul loves his craft and a good after party it must be said, he's not so keen on people poking about in his private life.
Paul has already boosted sales of O'Neills sportswear and started a trend for every moustachioed male in his twenties to wander around in shorts no matter what the weather.
Paul owes some of his muscle memory for his forthcoming film to his days on the GAA field but regardless of how he got the guns for it, Gladiator II is about to propel him to leading man status, with Mescalmania set to rise to another level.
Women across the world have been obsessed with Paul Mescal ever since he hit our screens as lovelorn Connell in Normal People, although his previous incarnation an advert for Denny's sausages made less of an impact.
But since his first public romance with American singer Phoebe Bridgers, despite the endless Google searches of 'Who is Paul Mescal dating?' he has learned from his mistakes and his love life is shrouded in mystery.
The young actor has previously said he won't allow his rising fame to interfere with his life.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, he said: 'You can choose for it to be something that impacts your life in a negative way, or you can find a way to address it being what it is so that you can still live your life pretty much the same way, if that's what you want to do. And that's what I want to do.'
Paul has appeared on red carpets with his sister Nell and his mum Dearbhla as his plus one and there is no doubt that they are the most important women in his life. And he has admitted that he gets annoyed about rumours surrounding his love life.
'I definitely feel the temptation to say the status of my whatever, that will always be there,' he told Vanity Fair. 'But I don't think that's a wise thing to do. When Normal People came out, I was very forthright in interviews, and it didn't actually serve me. But the temptation still exists to be like, "Shut the f**k up. This is my life. This is what's going on. Or this is what's not going on."
'But moving forward as much as I can, that's going to be my life that is private. That's a difficult thing to achieve. But giving strangers an answer about my life doesn't actually help me. It's like a quick boost of serotonin, being like, "I've said what I need to say." And then it's just Twitter fodder.'
Lately, though, rumours are once again rife after Paul was spotted in a restaurant with American singer Gracie Adams, with some reports hinting that this new romance might be the catalyst for him to leave London for Hollywood. But who has he dated and which famous women are just his good friends? We take a look.
Natalie Portman
Paul first met Natalie Portman when they interviewed each other for a magazine. Portman, pictured left with Paul's bestie fellow Irish actor Andrew Scott, divorced photographer Benjamin Milipied in 2023.
She and Paul recently set the internet alight when they were pictured smoking a crafty cigarette outside Bar 69 in London.
But with 12 years between them, it seems an unlikely match and Portman recently insisted in an interview that there was nothing but friendship and mutual respect for their craft between them.
'I'm very in awe of his talent,' Portman said.
Daisy Edgar Jones
As Connell and Marianne in Normal People, Paul and Daisy were the toast of lockdown. It was the on-screen romance that everyone was rooting for and the series that was basically binge-watched through the dark days of the pandemic. It was also the show that made the two young actors into household names.
Much as fans of the TV show would like to see a real-life version of Connell and Marianne, both Mescal and Edgar Jones have always insisted there is nothing more to their off-screen relationship than a close friendship, despite rumours to the contrary.
'Paul is one of my lifetime best friends,' Edgar Jones has said of her former co-star.
'He's an incredibly grounded person, and I am, too, I think, so it's nice to be able to have those touchstones and those people you can laugh about it with and be lighthearted with. We met when I was 20, and Paul was 22; I'm so excited to see where we'll be at 32, 42, and what life will bring.'
Gracie Abrams
Paul is a massive fan of music and it would appear that his latest squeeze is another American singer, Gracie Abrams.
The 24-year-old recently supported Taylor Swift on her Eras tour and was spotted having a meal with Paul at Brat, a Michelin-starred restaurant in London's trendy Shoreditch area. Again, the rumour mill pitched into overdrive when pictures of the pair showed Mescal tenderly touching Abrams' hair.
Sophie Wilde
Stunning Australian actress Sophie Wilde was rumoured to have fallen under Paul's spell at the BAFTA awards earlier this year.
The pair apparently struck up a friendship after meeting on many red carpets. Sophie is also a fan of the designer brand Gucci for which Paul is an ambassador.
But it was at a post- BAFTA bash in London's Chiltern Firehouse where they reportedly shared a smooch.
Angelina Jolie
A-lister Angelina met Paul for a quiet coffee in 2023 after seeing him perform in A Streetcar Named Desire in London's West End. However, Angelina's 16-year-old daughter Shiloh was in attendance and the meeting was just a friendly chat.
Phoebe Bridgers
It was a social media post after American singer Phoebe Bridgers watched Paul in Normal People that sparked a transatlantic romance.
Phoebe wrote 'Finished Normal People and now I'm sad and horny oh wait.' The following day, music lover Paul responded, saying, 'I'm officially dead.'
Love blossomed between the celebrity pair, despite the distance between them. And Phoebe even flew over to Ireland with Paul, the couple popping up in Kinsale on holidays and causing quite a stir. He also appeared in her music video for the track Saviour Complex.
Though they remained coy in interviews, the couple made their red carpet debut together in November 2021 and continued to cut a dash at events like the Met Gala in 2022.
Sadly, at the end of that year, it appeared the couple had drifted apart when Phoebe was spotted with American comedian Bo Burnham.
