As well as promoting the Nicolas Cage movie in which Nicolas Cage plays Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal is also currently filming the epic HBO TV series The Last of Us in Canada. The production, which has a huge budget and at least a year of shooting time for the first season alone, certainly looks set to rival The Walking Dead, as well as previous videogame adaptations.
Pascal has the – ahem – unbearable weight of responsibility that comes with playing Joel; the protagonist of The Last of Us. Stepping into the shoes of an iconic videogame character who has legions of fans is not an easy task to be taken lightly. Pascal of course wanted to do his research, but playing the game wasn’t plain sailing either.
Speaking to GQ, Pascal said; “It’s so sad, I haven’t any skill. I tried, you know. And then it was only a matter of minutes before I had to hand it over to my nephew. It really takes a specific kind of skill, and I don’t have it.”
Pascal continued; “I found Joel so impressive — I found the whole of it such a visually impressive experience. And then I got worried that I would want to imitate too much. There’s a very, very creative way of honouring what’s important and also preserving what is iconic to the experience of the video game, and also [to include] things that you wouldn’t necessarily expect. And then directions that you would expect it to go, and it might not… they’re doing some really smart things, is all I can say. It really is made for the people that love it. And there’s some very intense storytelling for people who might be less familiar.”
Pascal is no stranger to stepping into universes that already have loyal in-built fandoms, such as Game of Thrones (he joined the fourth season of the epic fantasy series), the DCEU (he played the villain in Wonder Woman 1984), and Star Wars (he plays the titular Mandalorian on Disney Plus). Therefore playing Joel should be a walk in the park, right?
While we wait for The Last of Us to land on HBO Max next year, check out our guide to the best zombie movies.