Paul Mescal lied to the casting directors that he knew how to drive. When he heard he had landed the part of Connell, he rapidly started taking driving lessons.
When the series debuted on iPlayer, the BBC's streaming arm in the UK, it was received over 16 million requests, making it one of the most popular programmes ever seen on the platform. Similarly, it was equally popular when it launched on RTE Player, the Irish broadcaster streaming service.
Paul Mescal's audition tape was one of the very first one that Lenny Abrahamson viewed as he started the casting process for Connell. He looked at many other actors, which only cemented his opinion that Mescall was the right one for the part.
Lenny Abrahamson was a big fan of Sally Rooney's first novel, "Conversations with Friends", and was given a sneak preview of "Normal People" before it hit the shelves. He was very keen to bring it to the screen and was adamant that it would work better as a TV series rather than a feature film.
Sarah Greene was a huge fan of Sally Rooney's novel and jumped at the chance to appear in the television adaptation when she first heard about it.