Credit: Sami Drasin for EW Breakout Moment: Dublin's Gate Theatre can claim credit for discovering the actor, but the BBC/Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney's Normal People — streamed more than 62 million times in the U.K. alone — made Paul Mescal, 25, a household heartthrob. Lessons From Quarantine: Alone time, especially in Sydney, where he's prepping for a film shoot, tested Mescal — "I lost my mind a lot" — and offered the chance to deepen his résumé. "Seeing everybody learning new skills, I was like, 'Jesus, I've got to do something,'" says the actor. "So I bought a nice guitar and I'm learning now."