Why Pedro Pascal Was Never The Same After Game Of Thrones
Pedro Pascal is prestige TV's heartthrob and "daddy" to many self-proclaimed stans on the internet. In recent years, you've more than likely seen the actor in one of TV's biggest shows, even if you haven't seen his face. As the titular "Mandalorian" in Disney's flagship "Star Wars" TV show and its spinoff "The Book of Boba Fett," Pascal has become a household name in recent years. Most recently, he added the leading role of Joel Miller from HBO's adaptation of "The Last of Us" to his list of career-defining characters.
The Chilean-born actor started landing TV roles in the late '90s and 2000s on shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and the "Law & Order" franchise. By 2014, his resume was certainly prolific, but he had never been the star of the show. That all changed when he became a scene stealer during one of the best seasons of "Game of Thrones." As the charming prince of Dorne, Oberyn Martell, Pascal shined brightly and was launched into the world of Hollywood stardom. To put it succinctly, he was never the same after that role in the HBO fantasy smash hit.
Pedro Pascal's Game of Thrones audition was shot on an iPhone
When it came to landing his role as Oberyn Martell on "Game of Thrones," Pedro Pascal got in on pure charisma. The audition tape he turned in for the role was apparently of poor quality. This shoddy tape was a testament to just how right the actor was for the role.
Pascal shot his "Game of Thrones" audition on an iPhone in selfie mode, according to a Variety interview with showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. That's a phrase that just doesn't carry the same meaning anymore now that filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh have shot entire films on smartphones, but at the time this was considered a bit of a faux pas for such a major show. Weiss and Benioff called the tape "amateurish" in their interview with Variety. Ultimately, though, they made the right call by realizing that the quality of a tape doesn't matter if the performance is great. When it came to the Viper, Pascal was still the actor who stood out as the right one for the job.
Being cast as Oberyn Martell got Pascal to start reading the game of Thrones books
In 2014, after gaining some fame for playing Oberyn Martell, Pedro Pascal did a Reddit Ask Me Anything where fans learned quite a few things about the Chilean actor. For one, Pascal is an avid reader, which he revealed when one commenter asked him for his favorite book. But, despite loving books, it wasn't until he was cast in "Game of Thrones" that Pascal cracked open "A Song of Ice and Fire."
Specifically, he started with "A Storm of Swords," the third book in the series. The second half of that specific book serves as the basis for Season 4 of "Game of Thrones," in which Pascal played Oberyn. The actor said that he picked up that specific entry and read the Tyrion Lannister sections — the ones directly involving his character — to get a sense of Martin's language and world. Pascal's dedication to getting the part right clearly came through when it became his breakthrough role. Although he expressed an intention to get through the books for real, the guy has been pretty busy ever since, so we're going to assume he hasn't quite gotten through them all yet. Maybe he's just waiting for George R. R. Martin to finally finish "The Winds of Winter."
Pascal had a great experience on the Game of Thrones set
All things considered, Pedro Pascal got a pretty good deal when it came to his experience on "Game of Thrones." He was admittedly a huge fan of the show before landing the role, and he remained one after leaving. It might be setting the bar low to say that's the best you can ask for on a massive production, but according to Pascal himself, he really did have a great time.
For starters, all of Oberyn's scenes were filmed on location in Croatia during the production of the show's fourth season. Pascal found this area of the country beautiful and said in his Reddit AMA that the city of Dubrovnik, Croatia has since become one of his favorite places in the world, claiming that he "could live there year-round happily."
"I might have been the luckiest human to have passed through that show," the actor said in a 2022 interview with GQ. "It was this great role, at the height of the show's popularity, a perfectly written season, a perfectly written role — go in, shoot for ten weeks, leave. Nobody got a chance to be sick of me." Though many storylines on "Game of Thrones" take place in inhospitable climates, Pascal got a pretty cushy assignment. "There were people in the snow, and doing night shoots, but for me, it was sun and chairs, you know?" he told GQ. "And then one big fight scene."
Shooting Game of Thrones allowed Pedro Pascal to travel
Prior to his acting career taking off, Pedro Pascal had spent most of his life in Chile and New York City, where he moved in 1993. It wasn't until "Game of Thrones" and the other on-location blockbuster shoots it led him to that he began to travel to more locations outside of the United States. By 2017, his production schedule required him to trot all over the globe for major movie and television productions — something for which the actor has expressed immense gratitude.
"My life changed," Pascal told ET Online in 2017. "I've been getting to see the world." In the interview, Pascal went on to elaborate that no matter where he went at the time, he was always getting recognized, either from "Game of Thrones" or "Narcos." He relayed one particularly strange encounter when he was traveling and went on a snorkeling excursion, only to be recognized by a fan who snapped a picture. "I was snorkeling, and this person kept on looking at me," Pascal said. "I remember I got really nervous because I thought there was a shark or something." Even when underwater, the star couldn't escape his newfound fame.
The role of Oberyn required him to train in martial arts
Oberyn Martell is a feisty fellow — and one with a good deal of leisure time — so it's only natural that he's in pretty good shape. Not only that, but the prince must know how to fight. The art of combat, however, had not yet been mastered by the actor playing him when he was cast. In his 2014 Reddit AMA, Pedro Pascal was asked what kind of training he had to do to stay in shape for his "Game of Thrones" role. His answer was more interesting than you might expect.
Pascal was trained before he even got to Croatia to start filming. First, the actor went to Los Angeles to train in the acrobatic martial art of Wushu, which he went on to use in the show. This Chinese martial art includes the use of weapons as well as bare-handed attacks.
"They put me with a master, his name is Master Hu," Pascal wrote in the AMA. "He showed me the basics and taught me how to fight with a spear and twist my body around and move in ways I never thought possible." Clearly, all that practice paid off, as Oberyn's battle against The Mountain stands as one of the highlights of the entire show.
His Game of Thrones character's brutal death put Pascal on the map
As we've alluded to, Pedro Pascal was on "Game of Thrones" for less than a season before his character was killed off. However, the specific way he was killed was so memorable that it led to audiences appreciating the character even more posthumously. Sure, he was beloved for his pansexual libido and overall charm, but his gruesome death was a shocking reminder that pure-hearted, heroic characters don't stick around long in Westeros.
Oberyn dies in Season 4, Episode 8 at the hands of Gregor Clegane, aka the Mountain, played by Icelandic strongman Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson. In the aptly titled episode "The Mountain and the Viper," the two face off in a trial by combat to determine the fate of Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage). Though Oberyn has the upper hand for a time, Clegane ultimately wins. He kills Oberyn in the most brutal fashion by jamming his thumbs through the cocky prince's eyes. Blood gushes out as Oberyn screams his final scream. It's a violent sight to behold and one of the most shocking moments in "Game of Thrones."
Of course, Pascal wasn't actually awake for all of Oberyn's death
While his "Game of Thrones" death might just be the single most important scene in Pedro Pascal's career, he wasn't even awake for the entirety of it. That's what the actor claims, at least. During an appearance on the YouTube interview show Hot Ones, Pascal spilled the beans on his dirty "Game of Thrones" secret — he got sleepy while filming Oberryn's death.
"There were all these fleshy bits that they were kind of placing all over my face and pumping blood so that it would pool, you know, and spread through the amphitheater," Pascal told host Sean Evans. "And I was dead asleep." The combination of a terribly hot day and finally wrapping up the exhausting four-day shoot of the Mountain fight was too much for Pascal to resist. "It was the best part of the day," he said, describing the cooling sensation of all the fake blood and guts. "It was so hot when we were shooting that scene." According to the actor, it's some of the best sleep he's ever gotten.
After Game of Thrones, Pascal began to be approached by fans in public
These days, Pedro Pascal has a certified fanbase spread across all things pop culture. The actor has a good sense of humor about the whole thing, but going back to his first fan interactions, it's clear that a lot has changed over the years.
Pascal recalled during a 2023 Hollywood Reporter roundtable that after playing Oberyn on "Game of Thrones," he began to get recognized in public. This was the first time the Chilean actor had been recognized widely for a role in his entire career. As a 40-year-old having a brush with true stardom for the first time, Pascal naturally embraced the love — literally.
At the start of his rise to fame, Pascal was famously liberal about posing with fans and even said that he enjoyed it for a time. Soon, though, he found a serious reason to be cautious with that kind of thing.
His enthusiasm for photo ops with fans stopped after getting an eye infection
It took a health issue for Pedro Pascal to stop letting fans be so personal when posing with him. During his Hollywood Reporter roundtable, the actor shared that after his role as Oberyn, many fans wanted to recreate the character's iconic death by sticking their thumbs into his eye sockets for pictures. There's plenty of photographic evidence of these days. Though Pascal said he was thrilled by the enthusiasm, he eventually felt the side effects. Obviously, no violence was done to Pascal, but when enough strangers start sticking their fingers in your eyes, something bad is bound to happen.
According to Pascal, he eventually developed an eye infection as a result. He learned the hard way that, especially in the streets of New York City, not everyone washes their hands, and even when they do, germs can be nigh impossible to avoid. That's probably just one of many reasons that high-profile actors try to avoid interactions with their most hardcore fans.
Pascal's Game of Thrones role helped him bond with his Last of Us co-star
Pedro Pascal and his "The Last of Us" co-star Bella Ramsey both appeared on "Game of Thrones" before starring together on the post-apocalyptic HBO drama. Only, the two didn't share any scenes since their characters showed up two seasons apart. Despite this separation, they still bonded over the shared experience of being on another one of HBO's biggest productions.
"I feel like it made us come from a family without knowing each other already," Pascal said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. The actor called it "a kind of bonding thing" that the two actors came in sharing from the start. Even before they built chemistry on set, they had a connection. Pascal told Augustman that he and Ramsey made each other laugh frequently throughout the shoot.
Pascal has also commented that he was probably more comfortable in his costume on "Game of Thrones" than Ramsey was. After all, Oberyn's wardrobe was light and sleek to fit both his royal character and the climate of Dorne. Ramsey's Lyanna Mormont character was much more armored and bundled up due to filming scenes set in the North.
Pascal's Game of Thrones success led him to Narcos
After "Game of Thrones," the next major TV role that Pedro Pascal picked up was that of Javier Peña in Netflix's historical crime drama "Narcos." The series primarily focuses on the drug empire of Pablo Escobar (Wagner Moura) and how it was investigated and eventually taken down by Drug Enforcement Administration agent Javier Peña. From the start of the show in 2015, Pascal was one of the most important characters in the story, but for the third season things needed to shift to make him the star of the show. Luckily, the actor was already well on his ascent to stardom.
At the end of "Narcos" Season 2, Escobar gets shot and dies while attempting to escape law enforcement. Thus ended Moura's heavily praised performance. In its final season before pivoting to the spin-off "Narcos: Mexico," the series made Peña its central character to fill the hole left by Moura. Pascal was more than capable of shouldering this weight, and he earned immense praise for his performance in Season 3.
His breakout role allowed him to finally live out a childhood fantasy
Plenty of actors grow up dreaming of being on the big screen, but some just have to wait a little longer for their big break to finally arrive. While we imagine that Pedro Pascal is pretty thankful for his extensive TV career, he has admitted that his dream always included being in big-budget action movies.
In a 2017 interview with ET Online, the actor said, "I realize that the fantasy is actually just like, being in a trailer, synced into a moment perfectly scored to some cool music." This was indeed a fantasy he got to live out. At the time of the interview, he had already filmed his part in "Kingsman: The Golden Circle," the sequel to Matthew Vaughn's 2014 spy-jinks-filled action movie. After a career of primarily TV roles, "The Golden Circle" was his first time getting to be in a big-budget action film. His only regret was getting to do this work at an older age than many because, according to the very charismatic actor himself, "everything hurts" when it comes to stunts.
Of course, in 2020 Pascal went on to star in "Wonder Woman 1984," adding another big-budget action-adventure movie to his long list of credits. And while "The Mandalorian" is technically TV, we can't deny that the trailers for the Disney+ show probably scratch the same itch for Pascal.