It’s hard to imagine a world before Daddy Pascal Pedro Pascal was a household name. But, before landing his breakthrough role on Game of Thrones as Oberyn Martell, the actor had several one-off roles in TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and CSI.
While Oberyn Martell was featured only in season four of the hit fantasy HBO series, Pascal left his mark on the show as the beloved Red Viper of Dorne. His gruesome and tragic death certainly contributed to his character’s memorability, but the charm and talent the actor brought to the role didn’t hurt either.
After Game of Thrones, Pascal’s career quickly picked up. He had recurring roles in Graceland and The Mentalist that same year, followed by a major role in Netflix’s Narcos series, in which he portrayed the Drug Enforcement Administration agent who helped take down Pablo Escobar.
It wasn’t long before the Emmy-nominated actor began landing scene-stealing roles in movies like Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Wonder Woman 1984 and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
Being cast in massive TV shows like The Mandalorian and The Last of Us solidified his place among the A-list, which led to parts in Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated Gladiator 2 and Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four.
Despite his appearance in massive projects, Pascal has maintained an interest in smaller, indie-like films, including Sundance Film Festival darling Freaky Tales and his upcoming role in Drive-Away Dolls.
Below, The Hollywood Reporter rounds up some of Pascal’s most well-known films and TV shows, as well as a few of his most anticipated roles.
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‘Game of Thrones’
Image Credit: Helen Sloan/HBO Pedro Pascal had a short but memorable run on Game of Thrones in season four of the hit HBO series. He portrayed Oberyn Martell, nicknamed the Red Viper due to his knowledge of poison and unusual, deadly style of combat. The character was also known for his passionate temper and sexual appetite. Oberyn met a horrible end in the season finale when — spoiler alert! — he battled Gregor Clegane, aka the Mountain, and almost won. However, instead of finishing the battle, Oberyn stopped to try to force his opponent to admit he raped and killed Oberyn’s sister Elia. The pause gave Clegane the upper hand and allowed him to kill Oberyn by first gouging in his eyes and then crushing his skull.
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‘Narcos’
Image Credit: Juan Pablo Gutierrez/Netflix In Narcos, Pascal portrays Javier Peña, a character based on a real-life DEA agent who investigated Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel. (Peña even worked as a consultant on the Netflix series.) The first two seasons of the show depict the rise and fall of the infamous drug lord. When the focus of the show shifted to the Cali Cartel for its final two seasons, Pascal took on the role of lead actor and narrator.
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‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’
Image Credit: Giles Keyte/20th Century Fox Film Corp./Courtesy Everett Collection Pascal transforms into Statesman agent Jack Daniels, aka Whiskey, in the sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service, and his weapon of choice? A lasso he can use to tie up, fling or slice enemies in half. While not exactly the villain in the film, Whiskey does, indeed, stir up trouble for some of his fellow characters.
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‘The Mandalorian’
Image Credit: Courtesy of Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd Pascal entered the Star Wars Universe in 2019 when he got cast in the title role in The Mandalorian, the first live-action Star Wars television series that debuted on Disney+. The series follows the lone bounty hunter, also known as Din Djarin, who works primarily in the outer reaches of the galaxy. After he is reunited with Grogu, he begins a new quest to reclaim his place in Mandalorian society.
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‘Wonder Woman 1984’
Image Credit: Clay Enos/Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection In the Wonder Woman sequel, Pascal takes on the role of Maxwell Lord, a manipulative mastermind and conniving businessman, who tends to be an enemy — or at the very least, opponent — of the Justice League. In the film adaptation of the comic book, Lord portrays the film’s primary antagonist but isn’t an outright villain. He is more so the film’s antihero, who would do anything for his son, Alistair (Lucian Perez).
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‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’
Image Credit: Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate/Courtesy Everett Collection The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent sees Pascal playing Nicolas Cage’s superfan and billionaire Javi Guitierrez, who offers to pay Cage $1 million for appearing at his birthday party. However, the festivities take a wild turn when the CIA gets involved. In the character-piece-turned-buddy-comedy, both Cage and Pascal portray versions of themselves.
“I would say that I’m playing a version of myself that might be even closer to me than Nicolas Cage is to Nicolas Cage in this movie,” Pascal told The Hollywood Reporter, before describing Cage as a “spontaneous and original” scene partner who was “fun to work with and challenging.”
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‘The Last of Us’
Image Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO The actor’s long list of roles in which he portrays a father or father figure — and as a result has been nicknamed “Daddy Pascal” on social media — peaked with his take on Joel Miller in HBO’s The Last of Us. Based on the video game of the same name, the show follows Pascal’s Joel and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie as he is tasked with smuggling the young character across the U.S. in hopes of finding a cure for the zombie apocalypse.
In February 2023, Pascal won the SAG Award for his portrayal of Joel, after several awards shows in which he was beaten by Kieran Culkin for Succession. During his acceptance speech, the actor noted, “This is wrong for a number of reasons — I’m a little drunk. I thought I could get drunk!”
At the show’s premiere, Pascal told THR it was “incredible” working with Ramsey. “We were both really nervous,” he explained. “We know that the story is very dependent on the connection between these two central characters, and there was no way to really know how that was going to turn out.”
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‘Freaky Tales’
Image Credit: Courtesy of Sundance Institute Freaky Tales follows four interconnected stories about the love of music, movies, people, places and memories beyond the knowable universe in 1978 Oakland, according to the logline. For the film, Pascal returned to his indie roots to play Clint, a retiring, debt-collecting assassin who fights neo-Nazis. He stars alongside Jay Ellis, Tom Hanks, Ben Mendelsohn and the late Angus Cloud in one of his final roles, among others.
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‘Drive-Away Dolls’
Image Credit: Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection Pascal is The Dealer in Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls. The film follows two women, played by Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan, as they embark on a road trip to Tallahassee, Florida, in search of a new start. When they find a mysterious briefcase in their rental car, however, things go awry as a group of criminals come after them. In the trailer, Pascal can be seen with the briefcase before his head later being discovered in ice. Drive-Away Dolls was released in theaters Feb. 23.
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‘Gladiator 2’
Image Credit: DreamWorks/Courtesy Everett Collection Gladiator 2 is Ridley Scott’s long-awaited sequel to his Oscar-winning 2000 film, Gladiator. While Pascal’s role is being kept under wraps, speculation is that he’ll portray someone in Roman history. The only named characters in the sequel are Paul Mescal’s Lucius, who takes on the lead role, and Connie Nielsen’s Lucilla. Little is known about the film’s plot, except that it’ll center on Lucius, who is Lucilla’s son and Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus from the original project. Denzel Washington, Joseph Quinn, Barry Keoghan and Djimon Hounsou are also set to star.
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‘The Fantastic Four’
Image Credit: ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images Reports broke in November 2023 that Pascal was circling the lead role of Reed Richards in Marvel’s upcoming The Fantastic Four reboot. In February 2024, the cast of the film was officially announced, including Pascal as Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing. The film is set to be released date of July 25, 2025, and will be directed by WandaVision‘s Matt Shakman.
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