Pedro Pascal credits Game of Thrones creators with changing his life

Now that Game of Thrones is five years in the review mirror, I think we can all comfortably say that Pedro Pascal is the biggest star to emerge from HBO's fantasy phenomenon, which is impressive since he only spent one season playing the swaggering Dornishman Oberyn Martell. Since the show ended, he's played a compromised cop in Netflix's Narcos; played the title character in The Mandalorian, the first-ever live-action Star Wars show; played lead character Joel in The Last of Us, another huge HBO drama; and was recently announced as Mister Fantastic in Marvel's upcoming Fantastic Four movie!

The only other Game of Thrones alum who approaches Pascal's notoriety is Jason Momoa, who was also on the show for only one season (as Khal Drogo in season 1) before leaving and spreading his wings; maybe not being tied down is the key. In any case, Pascal has been accepted into the upper echelon of Hollywood stardom. He's even on the cover of the latest issue of Vanity Fair alongside folks like Bradley Cooper, Colman Domingo and Natalie Portman:

And it all comes back to Game of Thrones, which Pascal is happy to acknowledge. “The role that changed my life was in Game of Thrones,” he told Vanity Fair. “I will always credit its creators for taking a chance on someone who had nothing but unknown theater credits and episodic television on their résumé. I still awe at the opportunity that was handed to me by David Benioff, Dan Weiss, and Carolyn Strauss. Without Thrones, I would not have had Narcos, The Mandalorian, or The Last of Us.”

Pedro Pascal teases his work in Gladiator 2

There's even an argument that Pascal has gotten too ubiquitous; when you're the face of Star Wars, The Last of Us, and an upcoming tentpole Marvel project, you run the risk of people getting sick of you. But I don't think that's happened with Pascal. He's got a range and likability factor that has kept him in demand.

And his star is still on the rise, believe it or not. In addition to all that other stuff, he's also set to appear in the sequel to Gladiator, which comes out in theaters this November. "I’ve been a part of big sets where the identity of the project, in a sense, is its size—and still, I have not been on a set as impressive as Gladiator’s," Pascal said. "[Director Ridley Scott] leaves very little to the imagination in the most old-fashioned sense. All the players and pieces are there on the day, and suddenly the expected challenge of believing yourself as a powerful person in the era of the Roman Empire is evaporated."

Stay tuned for when it's announced that Pedro Pascal is playing Harry Potter in Max's new reboot show. Hey, at the rate things are going, he'll appear in every other show and movie on the planet!

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