Age: 30
male
Paul Colm Michael Mescal (/ˈmɛskəl/ MESS-kəl; born 2 February 1996) is an Irish actor. Born in Maynooth, he studied acting at The Lir Academy and then performed in plays in Dublin theatres. He rose to fame with his role in the miniseries Normal People (2020), earning a BAFTA TV Award and a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award. Mescal progressed to film acting with roles in the psychological dramas The Lost Daughter (2021) and God's Creatures (2022). His starring roles as a troubled father in Aftersun (2022) and a mysterious neighbour in All of Us Strangers (2023) earned him nominations for BAFTA Film Awards in addition to a nomination for an Academy Award for the former. He received a Laurence Olivier Award for his portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in a 2022 revival of the play A Streetcar Named Desire. Mescal expanded to big-budget films with a leading role in the historical action film Gladiator II (2024).
Before this novel was published, Follett was known for writing in the thriller genre. The Pillars of the Earth became his best-selling work. It was made into an 8-part miniseries in 2010, and a video game in 2017. The book was listed at no. 33 on the BBC's Big Read, a 2003 survey with the goal of finding the "nation's best-loved book".[1] The book was selected in the United States for Oprah's Book Club in 2007. It is the first book in the Kingsbridge Series - the others being a sequel, set 150 years later, entitled World Without End (2007),[2] and A Column of Fire (2017) set in Elizabethan England. A fourth novel, The Evening and the Morning (2020), a prequel set in 997 AD, was released on September 15, 2020.
