Paul Mescal says Instagram 'f**king scares' him

The Kildare native, who rose to fame last year after starring as Connell Waldron in the television adaptation of Sally Rooney’s best-selling novel Normal People, deleted his Instagram account earlier this year.

Speaking on the A24 podcast, the 25-year-old said that he was a big people pleaser and decided to take a break from social media because he found it difficult to read the “negative” things people said about him.

“I’m definitely people pleasing,” he admitted.

“I came off social media last year in an attempt to put a bit of control around that. I have this innately in me but I don’t need to see what people think of me all the f**king time.

“It’s totally ego driven but also it’s an important part of being an actor. I don’t feel like we’re doing it for ourselves.

“Part of us is doing it because we love doing it but we’re making things for people to see and view and talk about. With that comes a dissection of you as a person and as an actor. Where those two things line up is the centre point of my anxiety.

“That is the ugly part of my brain.”

Continuing, he said: “I feel like some people are able to navigate it [social media] so well. I just get f**king scared of it. I’m just like well, this one person thinks this of me therefore that person is a representative of 90pc of the population, therefore I am hated.

“I know when you boil it down that’s not true but I feel like the loudest voice in the room is often the most negative.”