Pedro Pascal talks playing Oberyn Martell, Game of Thrones’ current Dornish storyline

Pedro Pascal was only on Game of Thrones for a brief time—he played the charismatic Oberyn Martell in a handful of episodes in Season 4—but it was enough to kick his career up several notches. Since then, he’s starred as DEA agent Javier Peña in Narcos and filmed The Great Wall with director Zhang Yimou. That’s a far cry from his early days in the business, when he was fired from “upwards of 20 restaurants as a waiter,” as he tells the Observer.

Naturally, Pascal has his role on Game of Thrones to thank for his gig on Narcos. He got the offer to play the part while Season 4 was still airing, but before Gregor Clegane crushed Oberyn’s head like a grape in “The Mountain and the Viper.” “[Narcos executive producer] Eric Newman was simultaneously disappointed and gleeful when I told him I was available,” Pascal recalled. “He was excited I could play the part but disappointed he knew I’d be losing the fight to the Mountain.” Such is the power of this show.

The interview goes into a lot of detail on Pascal’s career, including his very early days as an actor. He describes his first “big get” as playing Eddie the doomed freshman on the Season 4 premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, back in 1999. Remember this?

After that, he hustled for parts until the right one came along. He knew pretty quickly that Oberyn was the right one.

"I could see what was on the page, I knew the part I was getting, and it was obviously an opportunity to play a great, great part. So I knew, if I got this, right? It would change things for me. And it did."

That it did. When Game of Thrones Season 4 aired, Pascal was performing Shakespeare in the Park in New York City.

"I felt the reaction to Oberyn pretty instantly, with people coming to see Much Ado and waiting afterwards with pictures from Game of Thrones. It was cool to just kind of have strangers start smiling at you or give you the thumbs up on the train. I was lucky to be in New York and see it unfold in the city that I had lived in for so long and really feel its impact. It’s something I’ll never forget, actually."

Apparently, when Season 4 was airing, there was a subreddit devoted to straight men working out their attractions to Oberyn. He was definitely a hit.

Pascal has kept up with Game of Thrones since then—he was always a fan. However, he was surprised when Observer pointed out that some fans reacted poorly to the storyline involving Oberyn’s daughters. “Oh, no,” he said. “I have to continue to support my lineage. My homeland.” Did he, perhaps, set the bar too high? “Are you trying to say I set my daughters up for failure? I hope not.”

"The fans are really disappointed in what’s been happening in Dorne? Well, I mean, you obviously have to give people time to get over a death like mine."

Some of us might never be.

The second season of Narcos, about the hunt for drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, recently debuted on Netflix.