Paul Mescal’s mother has described the moment her son knew his life was going to change and how she encouraged her three children to take a holiday to Inishmore together in 2020.

Dearbhla Mescal and her husband Paul accompanied their son to the Baftas in London last month as the actor was nominated for his role in the film Aftersun.

The Kildare native has also received a best actor Oscar nod for his role in the film and his mother said she will be by his side to attend the awards in LA on March 12.

Most recently, the 27-year-old has also been nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance as Stanley in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire.

Now a household name, Mescal shot to fame after starring in the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People where he played Connell Waldron.

Ms Mescal described the run up to the release of Normal People three years ago and how Paul knew it was going to change his life.

“I was sitting at home, and he was running, and he said, ‘it’s happening tomorrow’, and I said, ‘yep’,” she told Ray D’Arcy on RTÉ Radio 1.

“It was streaming on BBC, so it was going to be going out into the world and he said, ‘my life is going to change, it’ll either change for the good or for the bad - because how people are going to perceive it is up to them’.

“He said, ‘it’s going to be a crazy ride’. I think they knew there was something very special about it. The book itself was pretty spectacular, Sally (Rooney) had written this amazing book that he got me to read.

“I remember he said to me, ‘have you read it?’, and I said, ‘I have, I don’t know if I really like you – you didn’t bring her to the debs!’”

The mother-of-three discovered she had cancer last July and was later diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

She described receiving her diagnosis in the midst of navigating her son Donnacha moving to New York, daughter Nell's budding music career and Paul's multiple acting nominations.

“Life has thrown me a swerve ball and in turn, swerved my children’s lives,” she said.

“I will be super duper, hopefully. It’s not a curable cancer, it’s more like a disease but I can live with it, and I will take any medicines and do my holistic life.

"The last few years have just happened to us, and it’s how you react. Do you dance in the rain or sit in the corner?”

Ms Mescal said after Normal People finished, she persuaded her three children to have a holiday together in Inishmore.

“There’s four years between each of them, Paul is 27, Donnacha is 23 and Nell is 19. At the time, Normal People had just finished, Nell was 16, I think,” she said.

“And I knew Paul was going to have to go to the next project, wherever that was going to take him.

“And there’s a window where your children no longer live at home and they’re going to live in the world.

“I thought about it, and I said - if I can get them to have three days together somewhere, just them, a bicycle and the wind and the rain.

“They went to Inishmore, and they went to one of the glamping sites there and they were together the three of them.

“I still don’t know what happened but there were no instructions except that this was their time and maybe, in my head, it helps them become friends as well as siblings.”

Ms Mescal said no matter what happens throughout her children’s lives and careers, they can always return home to Maynooth.

“There’s always home. I have a blanket that I got made that says, ‘soft place to land’, and I think for any parent, particularly at my age – I’m 54. When your children are at home and you can tuck them into bed, everything is quite safe,” she said.

“You can keep them as safe as you can but as soon as they start to move out, you can’t be there on the first day. But what you can say is, I’m here, I’m always here and what’s the worst thing that can happen?

“People don’t like that, and you don’t get this part, whatever happens – come home. Dinner will be on the table, the fridge is full, the blanket’s here and the fire will be lit.”