Paul Mescal names the best line in TV history: “A dagger to the heart”
Before he was a movie star battling sharks in the Colosseum, Paul Mescal was a humble TV actor on a little show called Normal People. Based on Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel, Normal People was a huge hit and made him an instant star. He earned a Bafta award and Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Connell, a university student navigating a relationship with Daisy Edgar-Jones’s Marianne Sheridan, a much wealthier and more troubled student from his hometown. Within two years, he’d earned an Oscar nomination for playing a young father in Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun.
You might assume, given how pivotal the show was in his career, that Mescal would name a moment from Normal People as the greatest line in television history. But he opted for something else entirely, choosing a show that aired just once before but which, even in an overabundance of peak TV, still stands out as one of – if not the – greatest of its decade.
During a conversation with his All of Us Strangers co-star Andrew Scott for Vanity Fair, Mescal revealed that he could flawlessly quote his co-star’s lines from season two of the hit dark comedy Fleabag. Phoebe Waller-Bridge wrote and starred in the show as the titular Fleabag, a shambolic and wildly charismatic 30-something struggling to put grief and guilt behind her. It quickly became a critical darling when it premiered on the BBC in 2016, and by the time season two aired three years later, it was a cultural phenomenon.
It was almost inevitable that season two would fail to live up to the standards of season one, but Waller-Bridge found a way to take the story in a new direction with the introduction of Scott, playing a young priest with whom Fleabag develops a friendship. When she falls for him, however, she discovers that he does not feel the same. In one iconic scene, she tells him that she loves him, and he responds with an unforgettable two-word sentence that Mescal vividly remembers.
“‘It’ll pass,’” he quoted back to Scott in their Vanity Fair conversation. “Best line in television history, I think.”
In a show full of punchy one-liners, this one still stands out as both devastating and painfully true. “I remember reading that line for the first time and just going ‘Oh my God!’” Scott said, adding, “Immediately, you think, ‘Is that a cruel thing that he’s saying?’ But it’s so kind, because it does pass.”
“But it’s also just upsetting,” Mescal interjected. “A dagger to the heart.”
The writing of that scene is pretty exquisite, but Scott was the breakout star of the season. He immediately earned the nickname ‘Hot Priest,’ which has stuck to this day. Even though he didn’t end up winning one of the five Emmys that the show received that year, it’s safe to say that his performance was a key to its success.
It was a turning point in his career, as well. After rising to prominence for playing the sadistic villain Moriarty in the hit series Sherlock, he was saddled with the roles of mentally ill baddies for several years. Fleabag changed all that, and helped pave the way for his nuanced, masterful performances in movies like All of Us Strangers.
