Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor on their shared ‘turn-on’ in History of Sound

The traditional folk ballad “Silver Dagger” is central to the love story between young men in Oliver Hermanus’s gay romantic tearjerker, History of Sound. A shared love of music draws Paul Mescal’s Lionel and Josh O’Connor’s David together in a bar at the New England Conservatory of Music, where they meet, and where David plays lost folk ballads on the piano. Eventually, their passion for the stories of star-crossed lovers and tragedy set to music lands them in bed and an epic love affair.

“I think there’s nothing more attractive [than] when somebody expresses an interest or a passion for something. It’s the most attractive thing to witness somebody passionate about,” Mescal tells Out.

Based on a story by Ben Shattuck, History of Sound spans from approximately 1910 to the mid-1920s, and follows Lionel from his humble farm in Kentucky to college in Boston, where he and David meet and fall in love. Following a years-long separation while David fights in World War I, the men embark on a journey to excavate and preserve the word-of-mouth folk ballads embedded in the culture in the far corners of Maine. A voiceover from elder Lionel (Chris Cooper) informs the viewer of Lionel’s synesthesia, his ability to experience sound through all of his senses.

“I think it turns Lionel on so creatively to see David and share this kind of thing that he feels is niche and only kind of belongs to him. He’s like, from Kentucky, comes to Maine, doesn’t feel like he can necessarily connect to anybody on this,” Mescal says. “And then lo and behold, one night he’s sitting in a bar and it’s David playing this song. If you put yourself in that position, it must have been the most exciting thing for him to hear this song through a bar and then see David and fall in love.”

Josh O”Connor and Paul Mescal in History of Sound Courtesy MUBI

While Lionel is the wide-eyed country boy in the big city, David, an orphan, hails from Newport by way of a stint in England, where his uncle taught him to preserve the ballads. Back from the war and masking PTSD, David arranges the song-collecting trip for the pair.

“Initially, there’s a creative and intellectual attraction, and then obviously a physical one and everything else,” O’Connor says. “But I think what’s so gorgeous about David and what I loved about him when I first read the short story and then read the script, was that ultimately he’s sort of curating this experience for them in a way that as obviously we later discovered that it wasn’t necessarily as he described, but he’s doing it out of love, like pure love for Lionel and for their shared interests and their shared creative passion.”

“I think that was the thing that broke my heart the most in a weird way for sure, of he was creating this little world for them both to go and explore. It’s such a gift. Deeply moving,” O’Connor adds.

Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor in History of Sound Courtesy MUBI

Mescal and O’Connor have starred in queer love stories before. Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers (2023) starred Andrew Scott and Mescal in a romantic, sexy love story that feels as though it takes place at the end of the world, and O’Connor starred opposite Alec Secareanu in Francis Lee’s film about gay sheepherders, God’s Own Country (2017). At a time when fewer studios are producing queer-themed projects, Mescal reflects on the responsibility that accompanies telling queer stories.

“It’s so much harder to get those stories made. The society is polarized to an extent that we haven’t seen before, especially in the world that we operate in. But we’ve just come from Telluride Film Festival, and it was kind of remarkable. I was there with Andrew Scott, and the impact that these films, All of Us Strangers and this film [have],” Mescal says. “It’s such a remarkable privilege to get to act in these stories, but also to be having the responsibility to tell these stories at the time that we’re telling them.”

Watch the full interview with Mescal and O’Connor above. History of Sound is in theaters now.

This article originally appeared on Out: Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor on their shared ‘turn-on’ in History of Sound