The world lost the chance to see Pedro Pascal in the Wild West: “I wrote letters and stuff”
Few actors have gone from nowhere to everywhere quite as quickly as Pedro Pascal, who, after bubbling under the radar for years, is suddenly now unavoidable.
Just look at his 2024/25, wherein the Chilean star has played a Marvel superhero, a Roman general, a suave bachelor, a smart-ass fox, and many, many more, and the fact that he’s been a busy boy over the past few years, you could say he’s been making up for lost time.
Another major release from this period with Pascal’s name on it was Eddington, from director Ari Aster, a Covid-19 drama that pitted Joaquin Phoenix’s anti-mask sheriff against Pascal’s pro-lockdown mayor in a small-town political battle designed to mimic the wider cultural landscape.
The movie drew praise and ire in equal measure, an appropriate response to a movie based on division, but the press tour gave Pascal a chance to confront his co-star about a previous transgression.
During an interview with Dazed, he spoke to Phoenix about a different movie, asking rhetorically, “Do you know how badly I wanted to be in The Sisters Brothers? I wrote letters and stuff. I read the book!”
Released in 2018, The Sisters Brothers paired Phoenix up with John C Reilly as a duo of Wild West hitmen called Charlie and Eli Sisters, respectively, who, under the direction of Jacques Audiard, before he lost his mind with Emilia Pérez, embark on a dangerous mission to track down prospective gold miners, played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed. It’s unclear which role Pascal had his eye on, but he would have fit either of the ones we’ve just described, and the book he would have read in preparation was published in 2011 by author Patrick deWitt.
Despite a top-notch cast, The Sisters Brothers failed to draw at the box office, making just $14million off a $38million budget, instead faring much better among critics. It was one of the most nominated movies at that year’s César Awards, where Audiard would win ‘Best Director’ for his efforts, the same he also won at the Venice Film Festival. Had Pascal been cast, it would have given him the chance to work with the great Rutger Hauer, the legendary Dutch actor who died in 2019, making this the final film released during his lifetime.
Pascal wouldn’t have to wait long to star in a western of his own, as in 2023, he appeared in Pedro Almodóvar’s short film Strange Way of Life opposite Ethan Hawke, which, much like The Sisters Brothers, concerns two cowboy gunslingers, but unlike it, the pair share a romantic bond instead of a familial one.
All of this cowboy chat came about because of Eddington, which is set in the deserts of New Mexico, so when Dazed asked Pascal when would he consider the movie a western, he seemed unsure as he responded with a query, “This one seems like a political satire western, but only partly because we’re in a dusty, small town, that’s what makes it a western?”
