Joe Alwyn and Paul Mescal Have Formed a 'Tortured Man Club'

On Thursday, December 15, Varietypublished the latest installment of its "Actors on Actors" interview series, which featured a conversation between the two actors, both of whom starred in TV adaptations of novels written by the patron saint of sad girls, Sally Rooney. So naturally, Mescal and Alwyn's discussion about their respective roles in Normal Peopleand Conversations With Friends began with a brief chat about getting in touch with their inner emo kids.

"So what's the name of the WhatsApp group that we're in?" Mescal asked Alwyn of their group chat. And according to The Favourite star, it's supposedly called "the Tortured Man Club."

"It's me, you — and Andrew Scott started the group," Alwyn continued, referring to none other than Fleabag's infamous Hot Priest, who he also said was the most frequent texter.

"He's just on it every day. He's just on it by himself," Alwyn explained before adding that Scott is often "just messaging himself good mornings."

Granted, the "Tortured Man Club" moniker does make sense, given that they're both dating musicians whose work is often extremely emotive and confessional, with Alwyn seeing Taylor Swift and Mescal reportedly engaged to Phoebe Bridgers. However, their conversation proved that the two are also quite introspective in their own right, seeing as how they went on to talk about dealing with their anxiety and how it affects their art and on-set experience, with Mescal saying that fully embodying his characters can come with "that cursed feeling of, once you feel like it's disappearing, it comes back and hits you like a ton of bricks."

"But I was talking to somebody about that. They said, 'I don’t think it’s ever going to leave you, because it’s a personality type,'" he said. "But for me, it’s trying to use that anxiety or fear or fear of failure — repurposing that to be like, 'What I’m doing matters to me.'"

You can read Alwyn and Mescal's entire "Actors on Actors" interview via Variety's website here.

Photos via Getty / Gareth Cattermole & Rachel Luna