Paul Mescal is a busy man this week with a slew of media appearances ahead of the premiere of his new film "Gladiator II."
On Thursday, his appearance on the viral YouTube show "Hot Ones," which sees host Sean Evans interview celebrities as they eat successively hotter hot wings, was released.
In the latest episode, Evans asked Mescal if he's a “hot sauce person by nature."
The Kildare native replied: “Fully Irish-blooded - no real spice in my diet.
"Maybe like buffalo hot sauce and that’s the extent of it, I would say.”
In the roughly 20-minute interview, Evans soon turned his questions to all things Irish, asking Mescal if "all Irish actors are friends" and what was the "best part" of hanging out with Colin Farrell.
Mescal burst into laughter at the question.
He proceeded to say how Farrell had texted him only a few days ago, but it was in reply to a text Mescal had sent him last year as a thank you for writing a "lovely piece" about him in TIME Magazine.
"I got a text a couple of days being like, 'Sorry I didn't get to this, I know I'm a year late.'"
Mescal continued: “Colin and I got to hang out in the Oscars run a couple of years ago.” Both the Irish men enjoyed their first Oscar nominations in 2023, Farrell for “The Banshees of Inisherin” and Mescal for “Aftersun.”
“He’s just an absolute gentleman.”
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Sticking to the Irish line of questioning, Evans asked Mescal what film he believes "best distills the experience of being Irish."
Mescal answered with a classic: “Do you know ‘The Wind that Shakes the Barley’? The film Cillian [Murphy] was in? The Ken Loach film?
“It’s about the Irish War of Independence. It’s just extraordinary and stirring and upsetting and captures a time period in Irish history that was upsetting and depressing and it was handled with such grace and honesty.
“If I was ever to point someone in the direction of an Irish film, I’d point them in that direction.”
Evans - who clearly did his research about Mescal's home county of Kildare - then asked about the Irish National Stud.
“It’s famous for horse racing," Mescal said.
"When I played Gaelic football, we’d be taken there the morning after Christmas day and flogged, like you would just arrive there at 6 am on St. Stephen’s morning and they would just run you for ten miles and whatever Christmas dinner was left in your stomach would no longer be there at the end of it.”
Later, as the hot sauce starts to get, well, hot, Mescal says: “Have you ever heard of the phrase ‘now we’re sucking diesel?’
“That’s an Irish phrase. After eating that now, you’d be like, ‘now we’re suckin diesel. Now we’re cookin with gas. Now we’re eating road.’ They’re all, you can have them.”
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