Pedro Pascal on How Dark Roles Can Weigh on Him: "I Was Really Naive About it"

Pedro Pascal recently opened up about the struggles of stepping into dark roles as an actor—something that continues to weigh on him long after filming has wrapped.

It seems like Pedro Pascal is practically everywhere these days, thanks largely to his critically-acclaimed portrayal of Joel Miller in HBO’s adaptation of the hit video game, The Last of Us. While he may be somewhat of a new face in Hollywood to some, truthfully, his lengthy career dates back to 1996.

Over the years, Pascal has starred in a number of impressive film and TV projects, including Game of Thrones, Narcos, The Mandalorian, and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020).

Now, the internet’s “daddy” has found himself fully submerged in the spotlight, set to star in Pedro Almodóvar’s Strange Way of Life (2023) alongside Ethan Hawke, as well as the upcoming sequel to Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000).

Pascal undoubtedly has some serious acting chops, proving his versatility as a performer across various genres and mediums. Still, even the best of the best have their struggles when it comes to perfecting their craft—especially when it comes to playing more tonally serious roles.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter alongside an all-star group including Jeff Bridges, Damson Idris, Kieran Culkin, Michael Imperioli, and Evan Peters for the latest Drama Actor Roundtable discussion, Pascal got candid about the difficulties of leaving a character behind, something he admitted to being “really naive about” as an up-and-coming actor.

While Pascal explained that he does, in fact, enjoy playing villains and typical textbook “bad guys,” he revealed that he’s always forced himself to “not be romantic about the process” of adopting these darker personas for various projects:

I’ve always forced myself to not be romantic about the process. And that doesn’t mean to not take it totally serious, but like ‘I can’t leave it at home’ and ‘bad guys are fun’ you know, and I love exploring that kind of stuff. But I’ve realized the older that I get it doesn’t really matter what you do. Stuff is going to come home with you.

However, reflecting back on his career, Pascal has realized that shedding certain characters isn’t a “decision” or a “choice,” but rather an unwelcome aftereffect of occupying the headspace of a villain for an extended period of time:

I’ve just felt like I was really naive about it in the past. Or that it was a decision, it was a choice. Like I refused to sort of indulge that these boundaries get blurred, and there isn’t really a way to keep that from happening.

It’s not difficult to imagine Pascal struggling to leave certain characters behind him, especially considering he’s played a bullet-dodging DEA agent, a rugged apocalypse survivor, a bounty hunter, and nearly everything in between.

Actors have experienced similar difficulties in the past, like Val Kilmer, who played the drug-addicted musician Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s The Doors (1991), or Margot Robbie, who found throwing herself into an abusive relationship for I, Tonya (2017) “emotionally traumatic.”

Hopefully, Pascal has something of a pallet cleanser in The Mandalorian, with his adorable charge, baby Grogu, being enough to pull anyone out of a funk.

What do you think of Pedro Pascal’s comments on playing dark roles? Let us know in the comments below.