How Joaquin Phoenix became a Pedro Pascal fan: “I don’t remember the movie, but I remember him”
Rather like the Covid virus, which provides the backdrop for the latest film from Ari Aster and Joaquin Phoenix, there was a world before Pedro Pascal was ubiquitous, and then suddenly there was now, where he is seemingly all over the place.
Prior to his lead role in The Last of Us, the hit video game adaptation that has won multiple awards and made a star of Bella Ramsey, Pascal was a semi-recognisable face thanks to some superb TV work on Netflix’s Narcos and Game of Thrones. But he wasn’t on the box literally every single time you turned it on.
One face he was not recognisable as, was Disney’s The Mandalorian, in which he did play the lead role, but unfortunately had to wear a helmet for the entire thing. Perhaps that’s why he is keen to get his (admittedly very handsome) visage in as many projects as humanly possible now.
Aside from two seasons of The Last of Us, Pascal has popped up in six different films in the past year alone and will shortly be seen as ‘Reed Richards’ in Marvel Studios’ absolutely not-asked-for-by-anyone reboot of The Fantastic Four, plus two new Avengers movies, one releasing in 2026 and one the following year.
Make hay while the sun shines, they say, so perhaps Pascal can’t be faulted for making the most of his current popularity with casting directors and audiences. After all, he has been a working actor since 1996, making appearances in the likes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Homeland and Law and Order: SVU.
Another movie we’re about to see Pascal in is the aforementioned Ari Aster film for A24, Eddington, alongside Joaquin Phoenix. The premise is certainly an intriguing one; it’s a modern-day western-cum-action comedy set in 2020 that has the Coronavirus at its core, as the mayor and Sheriff of a small American town clash heads over the best way to handle the crisis.
And Phoenix is certainly more than happy to be acting alongside Pascal, although initially he wasn’t too familiar with his work. He told Collider: “I remember seeing him in a movie called Triple Frontier. Honestly, I don’t remember the movie, but I remember him. I was like, ‘Who is this actor? They’ve come out of nowhere.’ I don’t think he has come out of nowhere. I imagine he’s been doing a lot of work, but that was when I was really first aware of him”.
He added: “He was in this film with all of these other amazing, charismatic, talented actors, and he really stood out to me, but I didn’t remember his name or anything. I just remembered him as an actor. When Ari first mentioned him, I was like, ‘Yes, I know this guy.’ I said, ‘Wow, he’s really good.’”
The pair have several very intense scenes in Eddington, including one where they come to blows to the soundtrack of Fireworks by Katy Perry. And it was fireworks (get it!) that Phoenix felt right off the bat when he met up with his newest costar at the start of the film’s production. He added: “He arrived, and we went to dinner, Ari, Pedro, and I, and honestly, I just instantly felt this intuitive connection to him as a person and as an actor. I don’t know how to explain it, but I just felt like, ‘I’ll do any scene with him and I know that it’s going to draw something out of me’.”
He concluded: “Because he’s so full of curiosity, and he just has this charisma. You just want to hear him speak, and you can’t take your eyes off him. So, there’s something very exciting about him as an actor.”
