How ‘All Of Us Strangers’ director knew Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott were ‘really into each other’

The director of Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal’s romantic fantasy All of Us Strangers has revealed how he knew the two actors were ‘really into each other’.

Andrew Haigh is who fans have to thank for putting these two dreamy Irish actors together for this “devastatingly good” queer film and sending critics raving over their “crackling chemistry.”

In a new interview, Haigh explained how he helped foster such a strong connection between the two actors who, before this project, had never met, and how he knew they “really liked each other.”

Speaking to Scott Feinberg for the American Film Institute, Andrew Haigh recalled: “We basically went to a concert together in London and I could tell that they were really into each other because they completely ignored me most of the day. 

“They were just talking to each other, putting their arms around each other, and you could tell that they really liked each other.”

The director added that the two are “still really good friends now,” teasing that “Andrew had a birthday recently and Paul was there – I did not get invited.”

He concluded: “If you can get actors that want to work with each other, that care about working with each other then there’s chemistry already there.”

In All of Us Strangers, Scott stars as Adam, a mildly depressed screenwriter in his mid-forties. 

He seems to keep running into his mysterious neighbour Harry, played by Mescal in the London tower block that they both live in. It isn’t long before a relationship starts to blossom.

But as he explores his chemistry with Harry, Adam finds himself drawn back to his family home in Croydon, where he encounters the ghosts of his parents, played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell, who look just as they did when they died 30 years earlier.

Through his paranormal encounters, Adam manages to come out to his mother and father and begins to immerse himself in his romance with Harry. He’s also able to ask his deceased parents the questions he never got an answer to when they were alive.

Although the film isn’t due to hit cinemas until late 2023 to early 2024, many critics caught sneak peeks at the highly-anticipated film at Telluride and BFI London Film Festivals – and the reviews are stellar.

A PinkNews review read that Scott’s performance “leaves you breathless” while he joins Mescal for “tender sex scenes, a vibrant gay club scene, sincere conversations about grief, and the steady thrum of joy found in blossoming love.”

All of Us Strangers is due to open in the US on 22 December and in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on 26 January, 2024.