During a stop on The Tonight Show, Pedro Pascal talked about all the big things currently happening in his career, including his roles on hit series like The Last of Us and The Mandalorian and how he was feeling about hosting Saturday Night Live.
“There is a wall of sheer terror that you start with,” Pascal said about his SNL gig. “Then, it’s such a well-oiled machine … they take these blocks of white, hot terror apart for you.”
Pascal then tells host Jimmy Fallon about what happened when he received the call telling him that he was cast in the lead role of the HBO series The Last of Us. The actor was in London when he spoke individually to creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann about possibly starring in the series.
Filled with adrenaline after the calls, Pascal said he decided to take an Ambien (sleeping pill), so he could get some rest. Sometime after taking the pill, he received a call letting him know that he booked the role of Joel Miller. The problem was, after waking up the following morning, Pascal had no recollection of receiving that call.
“I woke up in the morning and the first thing that occurred to me was like, ‘Aw, man, I really want that job,’” Pascal said. “I’m going to wait by the phone all day long. I’m going to be thinking about it all day long.”
Pascal then looked at his phone and saw that he had received texts from people congratulating him for landing the series. “It was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I got the job!’”
Earlier in the interview, Fallon joked that Grogu would not be appearing in the upcoming third season of The Mandalorian. “They couldn’t figure his contract out,” Pascal said. “They’re still in negotiations. His head got bigger than his ears!”
New episodes of The Last of Us air every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET. This week, the fifth episode will premiere on Friday (February 10) to avoid conflict with Super Bowl LLVI. The third season of The Mandalorian premieres on Disney+ on March 1, 2023.
Basically, it’s the year of Pedro Pascal.