Olivia Colman says she couldn't look Paul Mescal in the eye while shooting 'The Lost Daughter': 'I was a bit giddy'

• Olivia Colman and Paul Mescal star in Maggie Gyllenhaal's new Netflix movie "The Lost Daughter."
• Colman said she was "giddy" meeting Mescal for the first time.

Olivia Colman said that she had been such a "huge" fan of the Sally Rooney drama "Normal People" that she struggled to look Paul Mescal in the eye when she first met the Irish actor while shooting "The Lost Daughter."

Mescal — who stars alongside Colman in "The Lost Daughter," Maggie Gyllenhaal's directorial debut — shot to fame with his depiction of the challenged college student Connell in "Normal People." Mescal was nominated for an Emmy and BAFTA for his work on the show.

Colman — who is a three-time BAFTA winner — said she was "giddy" when she first met Mescal while shooting "The Lost Daughter."

"I was a huge fan from watching 'Normal People,'" she told The Sun newspaper.

"I couldn't look him in the eyes when we first met. He's just so kind and nice and a good person. And he sings beautifully. He's just lovely. He's the nicest and loveliest. He loves his family and he's so brilliant in what he does. His work is beautiful."

Colman later joked that she improvised a scene during the shooting of "The Lost Daughter" so that she could flirt with Mescal on-screen.

"That's always fun, but that wasn't even in the script. I just did that," she said when asked if she enjoyed shooting the scene before conceding that the scene had indeed been in the script.

In "The Lost Daughter," Colman plays a Harvard academic who finds herself questioning many of her controversial life choices during an unsettling vacation on a Greek Island. The film — which was written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal — is an adaptation of the best-selling novel by the Italian author Elena Ferrante.

"The Lost Daughter" — which streams on Netflix from 31 December — picked up the best screenplay award at the Venice film festival in September.

In a review of the film from Venice, Insider praised Gyllenhaal's distinct directorial style.

"Gyllenhaal is not only a director worth your time and money but a director of great skill and wit. Her debut behind the camera is a clever and complex tale that juggles themes of motherhood and loss while mulling around the thrilling milieu of a contemporary psychological crime caper with an ultra A-list cast," the review read.