Paul Mescal is keeping his most "precious" cards close to his chest.
In his cover-story interview for GQ's November issue, the Gladiator II star addressed his desire to keep his personal life private, telling the magazine he has "learned that there's certain lines in the sand now for me that just are going to be impenetrable for the benefit of my own sanity."
"The speculation has been kind of mad for the last x amount of years," continued Paul, 28, who is currently dating Gracie Abrams. "I'm not comfortable inviting any access into that part of my life."
He continued, "How I am in my private life is so precious to me because I get very little of it, and it might be public interest, but it's not public-obligated information."
Despite his desire to keep his private life just that, it doesn't mean Paul is not entertained by some of the rumors about him out there -- even the "categorically untrue" one claiming that he regularly has one-night stands and then runs off the next morning while his partner is distracted.
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The videos on social media are amusing to himself and his siblings "because we know that this is the way the internet works. It's hilarious. If it was true, it'd be f---ing bad, but as a rumor, it's funny."
But it's a different matter when it comes to one person in his family: his mom, Dearbhla Mescal.
"The one thing that upset me was that I was in the kitchen, I remember my mum looking at the videos and she was getting upset," Paul explained. "Isn't that devastating?"
"I was like, Oh, if you're a mother, her impulse is to come out and be like, 'He wouldn't do this,' " added the Irish actor.
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As for his dedication to his career and its recent trajectory, the Academy Award nominee admitted to GQ, "My agent refers to me openly as a psychopath when it comes to work."
"I want this to never stop," Paul explained. "So with that comes a kind of neurosis of control."
And when looking at the long term, the Normal People star said, "I've always been convinced that I'm not going to live a long life ... it's just like a gut feeling."
"Maybe it's to do with the fact that I can't visualize myself as an 80-year-old man. ... But I'm also afraid of death," he continued. "So I think if death was to come for me at 55, I'd be equally afraid of it as I would be at 90."
While the idea that he might die younger is "always in my head," Paul said, "Hopefully, I'm wrong. I think I will be wrong. But that's just the truth around my brain."