Award-winning filmmaker Sir Ridley Scott has dismissed the suggestion he fired Paul Mescal from his latest film due to concerns that he wasn’t “masculine” enough in their previous collaboration.
Last week, the Puck newsletter What I’m Hearing alleged that Sir Ridley was unhappy with Paul’s performance in the movie Gladiator II, and had blamed the Oscar nominee for the film’s lukewarm box office takings.
The newsletter claimed that the director’s dissatisfaction stemmed from his belief that the Normal People star wasn’t “masculine” enough for the role he’d created, leading to them no longer working together on the new film The Dog Stars.
“Not true,” a spokesperson for the filmmaker told Entertainment Weekly. “Ridley loves Paul and was excited to work with him on Dog Stars after having [enjoyed] such a great collaboration on Gladiator II.
“Sadly, Paul’s rehearsal schedule for another film prevented him from ultimately doing Ridley’s film.”
Originally, Paul was supposed to play the lead in the post-apocalyptic thriller The Dog Stars, but was eventually replaced by Jacob Elordi due to what was reported at the time to be “scheduling issues” involving Sam Mendes’ upcoming Beatles movies, in which the Irish star will appear as a young Sir Paul McCartney.
The rep added that “while he was disappointed to lose Paul”, Sir Ridley was “thrilled to get the chance to work with” Jacob, describing his performance as “excellent”.
Evan Agostini/AP/Millie Turner/
Unfortunately, The Dog Stars – which also stars Josh Brollin, Margaret Qualley, Guy Pearce and Oscar winner Allison Janney – received something of a lukewarm response from fans and critics, with a Letterboxd rating of just 2.8 stars and a Rotten Tomatoes score of 40%.
Sir Ridley previously shrugged off naysayers of Paul’s credentials to play the lead in Gladiator II, insisting to Entertainment Weekly in 2024: “In my job, I’ve got constant doubting Thomases driving me fucking crazy.
“But when you’ve done the Formula 1 car around the track so many times, I do know how to take those bends.”
