Pedro Almodóvar is gearing up for a new Western short film with Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke. The project, which is currently in pre-production, is currently being called Strange Way of Life and is being billed as an answer to Brokeback Mountain.
The short film will run about 30 minutes and will follow the two main characters as they lead up to a Western-style shootout. Sheriff Jake, played by Hawke, and gunslinger Silva, played by Pascal, are the classic good and evil duo that spend the film looking for each other having not seen each other in 25 years. Yet, where things go different is the intimacy Almodóvar teases.
“So one of them travels through the desert to find the other,” Almodóvar told IndieWire when asked if things turn romantic. “There will be a showdown between them, but really the story is very intimate. You can guess. I mean, masculinity is one of the subjects of the movie.”
The cast has already met over Zoom to begin rehearsals, though Almodóvar admits that Zoom rehearsals are not the best way to get the cast to connect to the material. Fortunately, both Ethan Hawke (The Black Phone) and Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us) have wrapped different projects and promotional tours meaning they will soon be convening in Spain to begin working on Strange Way of Life.
The stars are expected to be in Spain in July and the short film will be filmed in the desert region of Spain’s Almería region. This is where Sergio Leone filmed The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.