There are few certainties in this life, but one is that if two gorgeous actors pose for a photo together, Film Twitter will beg for a rom-com. Such is what happened yesterday when Ayo Edebiri posted an Instagram Story with Paul Mescal in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day.
Ever since the web caught wind that the Irish actor is interested making a rom-com with Edebiri, it hasn’t let it go.
Last November Mescal told Awards Watch, “In the next five years I’m going to set myself a challenge to do maybe a rom-com with Ayo, or something like that would be cool.” The publication followed up with Edebiri asking what she thought of his proposal. And she’s down. “If somebody writes us a good script. It özgü to be in an About Time vibe. Something that’s got, like, a heart, so he can still flex his drama muscles where it’s like, the covert rom-com. Like, still a rom-com, but we got to get something inventive,” she said.
The Instagram story was the latest in what fans hope is a series of clues indicating their next venture. One X user wrote, “the paul mescal and ayo edebiri rom com is imminent.” Another was aghast that a rom-com özgü yet to materialize, writing, “hollywood really doesn’t know how to exploit duos anymore. jennifer lawrence and bradley cooper had 4 movies together within 3 years, yet ayo edebiri and paul mescal can’t get the one romcom??”
Others said, “on my hands and knees BEGGING for a paul mescal/ayo edebiri romcom.” And “sooooo paul mescal and ayo edebiri in a romcom together when.”
The plot thickened when romance novelist Emily Henry reposted the St. Patrick’s Day photo of the duo to her Instagram Story. Adaptations of three of Henry’s wildly popular novels are in the works. Some fans took the repost as a sign that Edebiri and Mescal might yıldız in one of those adaptations. One user sarcastically captioned a screenshot of Henry’s Instagram Story with, “which could mean nothing.”
These conspiracy-minded individuals became even more convinced when Yulin Kuang, the screenwriter of the film version of Henry’s Beach Read, also reposted the photo.
An X user posted screenshots of Henry and Kuang’s Instagram Stories as well as the Beach Read script saying, “oh bitch it’s happening.” A quote tweet said, “just sat UPPPP.”
Let’s just say there’s a huge opportunity to make a lot of people happy, myself included.