Josh O’Connor: ‘Filming period romance with Paul Mescal deepened our relationship’

Josh O’Connor has revealed how playing screen lovers has ‘deepened’ his bond with friend Paul Mescal.

The pair star together in period romance The History of Sound, directed by Oliver Hermanus, and based on a 2018 short story from Ben Shattuck.

Josh, 35, and Paul, 29, play lovers and music students in 1910s New England – who are playing at a conservatory together when they’re suddenly torn apart by America’s World War I draft.

The film premiered at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, emerging as one of the most anticipated pictures on its hallowed slate.

With The History of Sound also playing at BFI London Film Festival this weekend, Metro caught up with Challengers star Josh on the red carpet.

In doing so, the actor revealed how playing Paul’s lover only brought him ‘closer’ to his co-star and real-life friend.

When asked what effect making The History of Sound had upon their relationship, Josh replied:’We’ve been really good friends for a long time, but from afar. We met during lockdown, as everyone else.

‘I saw Normal People and I reached out and said I just wanted to speak to him and say how much I loved his performance and then we built a great friendship.

‘But I think when you work together every day and and when you’re transported into another world and trying to play characters meaningfully, so much of playing a character, particularly in a love story is about the other person and so inevitably that brings you closer and your bond is closer.’

Sharing an insight into his somewhat mysterious and elusive character, Josh described David as a ‘heightened, slightly non-naturalistic’ version of the character, based on a memory.

‘So you could lean into the rose-tinted glasses version of David, which is what I was trying to do,’ he added.

Director Oliver Hermanus also shared how he had first became aware of the actors’ palpable chemistry long before filming had begun.

‘I remember there was one night where – this is a long story – but I was DJing at somebody’s house and they were both there. We just hanging out and I was like, “these guys are so fun and just get on,”‘ Oliver said.

‘So then when they become actors on set they bring this other aspect of themselves and just their talent and that’s when you go “oh yeah this is Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor” because they have a magnetism about them and I love the fact that I got to be the director who got to see them work together for the first time.’

On David and Lionel’s tender, unwavering relationship, Oliver said: ‘I think history has a way of portraying the past that queer people were hidden.

‘Before I made History of Sound I made a TV show set in17th century, the court of James I, [Mary & George] which was about the fact that queer sex was rampant.

‘It’s a misconception that we think that queer people were hidden. And I think every person was an individual.

‘I like the fact that these two characters did not embed themselves in any shame regarding their relationship.’

Looking back on the pair’s energy, Oliver recalled a particularly adorable moment from early on in the shoot.

‘It was the end of the first week,’ said Oliver. ‘I watched the two of them [Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor] run off the set as if it was like the end of a football match.

‘They were like swinging their arms there as if they’d scored a goal because we’d achieved the first week.

‘We’d done it. It was real, we existed. We were in it [after] so many years [in the] making.’

Following the film’s Cannes premiere, Metro’s own Tori Brazier described it as a ‘poignant, beautifully-shot package.’

‘Mescal and O’Connor do prove the captivating onscreen couple that all their fans hope they’d be,’ our three-star review continues, likening the pair’s screen romance to Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain.

Gladiator II star Paul might take issue with that comparison though, telling Metro:  ‘I personally don’t see the parallel at all between Brokeback Mountain, other than the fact that we spent a little bit of time in a tent. But each to their own in terms of how you are!’

He continued: ‘Because that film, to me, when I look at Brokeback Mountain – it’s a beautiful film, but it is dealing with the idea of repression, and this film is fundamentally pointed in the opposite direction.

Because, he argued, The History of Sound is ‘born out of the fact that it’s a celebration of these two men’s love, not a film about their repressed relationship with their sexuality’.

The History of Sound is set for release in the UK on January 23, 2026.

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