Cannes 2025: Paul Mescal says ‘The History Of Sound’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’ comparisons are “lazy and frustrating”
Speaking at the Cannes Festival for the debut of his new film, The History Of Sound, Paul Mescal aired grievances about the rhetoric used towards the queer film.
The film, directed by Oliver Hermanus, features Mescal and Josh O’Connor as two men experiencing a budding romance during the First World War.
On May 21st, Mescal addressed the common parallels drawn between the upcoming movie and the 2005 queer classic Brokeback Mountain. “I personally don’t see the parallels at all, other than the fact that we spent a bit of time in a tent,” said Mescal at the Cannes press conference for the film. “But each to their own. There’s a bigger question there in the fact that it draws your attention to ‘why do I think that it’s not that film?’”
He firmly opposed them, stating, “Brokeback Mountain is a beautiful film, but it deals with the idea of repression, and this film is fundamentally pointed in the opposite direction.”
He continued: “To be honest, I find those comparisons relatively lazy and frustrating. The relationship I have with [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 director continued Mescal’s points, noting, “Maybe there’s a deficiency in this assumption that films with well-known actors, playing lovers in a relationship – the only previous incarnation of something comparable is 20 years ago.” Ben Shattuck adapted the new movie from his own story.
Mescal spoke at length at the conference about his relationship to masculinity, and how it manifests in this film. He has played a queer man before, opposite Andrew Scott in All Of Us Strangers.
The Gladiator II actor will soon play William Shakespeare in the film adaptation of the best-selling book Hamnet. He will star opposite I’m Thinking of Ending Things actor Jessie Buckley, who will play Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes.
Mescal is also cast to play Beatles legend Paul McCartney in the upcoming string of biopics, directed by Sam Mendes and set for release in 2027. Mendes confirmed that Barry Keoghan, Joseph Quinn, and Harris Dickinson would play the parts of Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and John Lennon, respectively.
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