Paul Mescal 'set to star' in musical that will take 20 years to film

Paul Mescal appears to have landed a new gig and it looks like he's scored every actor's biggest dream, a steady gig.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Normal People star is replacing Blake Jenner in the leading role of upcoming musical production Merrily We Roll Along.

There's just one slight hitch about getting this job, it's going to take him about 20 years to actually finish all of his scenes because he'll be expected to age along with the character.

Mescal has already proven he can sing something fierce, now we'll get to see if he can sing for the next two decades when (or perhaps if) filming on musical Merrily We Roll Along actually wraps up and we get to see how it went.

First announced four years ago, the first chunk of filming for the musical was completed back in 2019, which given everything that's happened since then feels like another world entirely.

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With two more decades worth of filming left to get through it's hard to predict exactly what sort of world the musical will release into.

It's not really much of a surprise that Merrily We Roll Along could take up to 20 years to properly complete, as Richard Linklater is involved in the musical's production.

Linklater has a bit of a history of taking years to complete a production as he likes to use the same cast of actors and wait for them to age appropriately rather than recasting the part or relying on makeup or the suspension of disbelief to carry the audience through.

He took years to shoot his trilogy of movies Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight with the first releasing in 1995 and the last in 2013, while he did the same thing for 2014 coming of age movie Boyhood.

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Since Merrily We Roll Along follows the life of composer Franklin Shepard it looks like this is going to be yet another one of Linklater's notoriously lengthy shoots, with Mescal working alongside Ben Platt and Beanie Feldstein to bring the 20 year musical to life.

However, there's yet another twist in the tale as the musical follows Shepard's life backwards, starting at the peak of his fame before rolling back the years to his earlier days.

That would likely mean that Mescal will be shooting his final scenes first and only wrapping on the musical years later once he's shot what will end up being the first things the audience get to look at.

Here's hoping it ends up being worth the wait.