In 2005, he was cast in Manhattan Theatre Club’s off-Broadway production of Beauty of the Father along with Oscar Isaac. The two developed a tight bond. “There doesn’t seem to be a separation in his depth of feeling, as a human being on earth and as a character in a play,” says Isaac. “The emotional through line is consistent, just really raw and honest.” Isaac has had a bit of a career liftoff himself since then, and now he’s getting to watch it happen to his friend. “He’s my family,” says Isaac. “And I don’t have a fucking clue about the fame part of it—I just see somebody who’s finally really getting the recognition that he’s due.”
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Indeed, the fact that Pascal had to work through so many setbacks on his journey to superstardom makes it all the more satisfying for his fans in the industry. “This was not somebody Hollywood sweated to make a star,” says Mazin, the Last of Us co-creator and EP. “They didn’t keep him out, but they didn’t drag him along, either; they just sat there with their arms crossed. And he fought all the way, and every single time, he connected.” He adds, “I’m just honored that my name will be forever near his in a Wikipedia page.”
Pascal’s emotions are right on the surface, radiating out through those expressive eyes. So it’s a little surprising that some of his Hollywood peers compare Pascal to one of American cinema’s most famous stoics: Clint Eastwood. Jon Favreau, the creator of The Mandalorian, tells me, “The original Boba Fett armor and the T-visor were based on Clint Eastwood’s the Man with No Name, where they used angles and the brim of his hat to hide his eyes. We wanted to adhere to that tradition, and Pedro felt that he had the power and the ability to breathe life into a costume and made it something more.” Bradley Cooper, who is a friend and a fan, also references the Hollywood gunslinger: “I would argue that he’s playing kind of a Clint Eastwood iconic archetype in The Last of Us.”
Mazin says he had Pascal in mind for the role of Joel on The Last of Us from the beginning: “It was about finding that vulnerability in Joel, to rely on the fact that the natural tough-guy-ness was there but not to lean too hard into it. Pedro has this likability, but he also has this other thing where he can very successfully play tough, tough men who do bad, bad things.”
When the cameras aren’t rolling, Pascal takes on a much different, and sometimes sillier, persona. Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie on The Last of Us, says she and her surrogate father on the show have developed a shared protectiveness. “I’ve learned from him to be kinder to myself, which is a thing he’s not very good at, in terms of the pressure he puts on himself,” says Ramsey. “But I guess that’s something that he taught me hypocritically, then I taught to him back.” A pressure valve arrived in the form of Pascal’s surprising affection for an early-eighties Olivia Newton-John pop hit. “He would break out in song a lot on set,” she says. “?‘Xanadu’ in particular. I don’t think it’s on the official soundtrack, but Pedro singing ‘Xanadu’ is the theme song of The Last of Us.”
Okay, let’s address this daddy business. Daddy is a word that comes up in the Pedro Pascal conversation and his various social-media fan accounts a lot. Like, a lot a lot. He plays around with it, too, saying things like “I am your cool, slutty daddy” into cameras on red carpets. A sketch on his episode of SNL addressed it head-on, as the cast yelled things like “You are so father,” “We have to make you daddy,” and “You have us in a choke hold”—things that are both chaste and explicit, childlike and informed by deep fetish-speak. Sexual but not. It’s, um, kinda weird. Paulson, who made a cameo in the sketch (as Mommy), says: “I’ve been dealing with this mommy business for a few years now, and I actually don’t understand what a lot of it means.”
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Craig Mazin has a theory about Pascal’s daddy appeal: “I think everybody either has fond memories of a positive father figure in their life or they have a terrible gaping space in their heart where a positive father figure ought to have been. Nostalgia or longing for let’s call it nontoxic masculinity. And he has that, but he also has this expressive pain behind his eyes.”
Pascal shrugs. “Plus, I’m old.”
Whatever it is, Paulson says, “Knowing Pedro as intimately as I do, I would not want him to be my daddy, personally. I want him to be my pal that I can hang out with until all hours of the night, but Daddy?”
Season 1 of The Last of Us ended exactly the way the first video game did, which means—spoilers will follow; you have been warned—Joel has learned the vaccine can be produced only via a surgery on Ellie’s brain that will kill her. So he has murdered the hell out of most everyone in the hospital they spent nearly the whole season trying to get to, and he has just lied to her about it. It’s brutal. And it is possible that the pure love from the public might get a little more complicated. “Maybe at that point I’ll get myself off the streets for a while,” he says with a sparkle. “Maybe it’ll be time for a vacation.”
Coat and knit, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello; necklace by Werkstatt: Mu?nchen.
