‘My granny watched me in the throes of passion!’
One of the biggest talking points around the show is the full-frontal nudity shots and realistic sex scenes – a mixture of fumbling and giggles during awkward moments, and intense passion. The show has been praised for its “consensual sex”, with Ita O’Brien, the show’s “intimacy coordinator” saying, “It isn’t just there to show us sex – those scenes chart the delicacy, the beauty, the openness of this incredible, somethingother relationship.”
Refreshingly, Paul – who had previously only performed on stage – was subject to full-frontal nude scenes as much as Daisy. Speaking on The Graham Norton Show recently, he revealed how he’d warned his grandparents about “lots of sexy scenes” and asked them to busy themselves when they came on. But he admitted it didn’t always go to plan and explained, “I think it was episode two and there was kissing or whatever and [my granny] thought that was the bit, so she put the dog out and took her time to come back in. But she underestimated the time it was going to take, so as she was coming back in we were right in the throes of it! She had to wait outside the door for the sound to stop. So I think a good long chore might do the trick, or a couple of cups of tea and you should be safe.”
Fans will be pleased to know the 24-yearold actor isn’t too dissimilar to his character – he went to Dublin’s Trinity College, just as Connell did, and is now isolating in east London with his co-star India Mullen, who played promiscuous, threesome-suggesting friend Peggy, sparking rumours the pair are dating. And like Connell, he too was conflicted on his career path as a teen.
Speaking on the An Irishman Abroad podcast, Paul said, “I did a school musical when I was 16 and I fell in love with the immediate adrenaline rush that I got when I was on stage, but I didn’t know any actors who got paid for it. So I progressed through the final years of school not knowing what I was going to do, and that would allow me still to play Gaelic football, because that was a huge part of my life as well. How do I facilitate both those things?
“I met a guidance counsellor at the tail-end of my sixth year… I think it took somebody else articulating that for me to then realise that drama was the first thing that I could see myself happily studying.”
‘I fell in love with the adrenaline rush I got on stage’