Don’t look now, but HBO’s got another Sunday-night behemoth on its hands. Four weeks into its run, The Last of Us is already proving to be a phenomenon: The series has scored the second-highest viewership of any HBO program over the past decade, a number that keeps climbing by the episode. (Unsurprisingly, the show has been renewed for a second season.) Along the way, the small-screen adaptation of Naughty Dog’s video game franchise of the same name has finally put the so-called video game curse to rest, striking a balance between remaining faithful to the source material and taking the story in compelling new directions. But one underrated factor in the show’s success is that it follows what’s become a tried-and-true pop culture formula: Put Pedro Pascal in your project, give him a plucky sidekick, and let the magic happen.
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In The Last of Us, Pascal plays Joel, the hardened protagonist whose daughter was tragically killed in the initial chaos of the zombie outbreak. Twenty years later, Joel makes a living as a smuggler in Boston’s quarantine zone and accepts an assignment to transport Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a scrappy teenager who may hold the key to finding a cure for the fungal infection that’s ravaged humanity. (Ellie was bitten by an infected person, but she never turned.) Even for viewers unfamiliar with the game, it’s easy to see where the relationship between the characters is headed: Joel has no interest in opening up to a girl about the same age as his late daughter was, but over time, he will inevitably embrace his role as a postapocalyptic father figure.
While Joel and Ellie have a prickly dynamic at the start of the series, Sunday night’s episode, “Please Hold My Hand,” is the first major step for the characters as they learn to care about each other on a more intimate level. Trying to cut through Kansas City on the way to Wyoming, Joel and Ellie are ambushed by unknown assailants, later revealed to be part of an anti-government revolutionary movement led by a woman named Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey). During this face-off, Ellie shoots a young man who’d gained the upper hand on Joel. While the bullet isn’t fatal, it’s a harrowing moment that leads to the stranger begging for his life; he looks less like a credible threat and more like a scared kid in over his head. Instead of being merciful, Joel tells Ellie to walk away from the scene before he finishes the job.
The situation draws Kathleen’s attention, and she has troops scour the city. As they hide out, Joel attempts to comfort Ellie about having to shoot the stranger—at which point she explains that it’s not the first time she’s harmed another person. Seeing someone so young accustomed to such violence—and again, at an age close to that of his own daughter—finally brings out some sympathy in Joel, who begins seeing Ellie as more than just a means to an end. The growing affection he has for Ellie might not absolve Joel of killing people (some undoubtedly innocent) over the past two decades, but it gives him a new purpose outside of pure self-preservation. Future events from the game are always just a Google search away, but one of the joys of The Last of Us is watching Pascal and Ramsey’s chemistry develop alongside their characters.
If caring for a young charge appears to come naturally to Pascal, it’s because he’s had some practice. Even before The Mandalorian, which was the first live-action Star Wars series and has turned into the greatest success story of Disney’s nascent streaming service, Pascal starred in another sci-fi project that saw him reluctantly accept paternal-like responsibilities. In the 2018 indie film Prospect, cash-strapped prospector Damon (Jay Duplass) and his daughter, Cee (a pre-Yellowjackets Sophie Thatcher), arrive on a hazardous alien moon that’s home to valuable gems. Not long after landing, the duo encounter rival prospectors, including a rogue named Ezra (Pascal). A tense shoot-out ensues, and the only ones left standing at the end of it are Ezra and Cee, who begrudgingly team up to get off the moon alive.
Prospect is largely indebted to old-school westerns—the lawless pursuit of these gems is akin to an interstellar gold rush—and Pascal’s character fits into the equation as the charming gunslinger archetype, albeit the kind that wields more empathy than he would ever care to admit. As far as The Last of Us parallels go, Ezra has a southern-like drawl that isn’t too removed from Joel’s, and by the end of the movie, the character’s relationship with Cee is genuinely touching. Unlike the valuable resource responsible for senseless violence on the moon’s surface, Prospect is a hidden gem that’s worth seeking out.
In retrospect, Pascal’s performance in Prospect essentially served as a soft launch for his eventual role in The Mandalorian. While his face is obscured by a helmet for much of the series, it’s clear as day that Pascal’s Din Djarin (better known as Mando) is quite taken by Grogu (better known as Baby Yoda) from the moment he comes across the little guy at the end of the pilot. As a result of the helmet-imposed limitations, Pascal mostly conveys his character’s affection for Baby Yoda through understated gestures, like giving him a little doohickey to play with. (Mandalorians aren’t much for grand displays of emotion, anyway.)
More than any franchise Easter eggs or creepy de-aging cameos, what makes The Mandalorian so watchable is the evolving bond between Mando and Baby Yoda, who can’t stand to be apart from each other. (Anyone who didn’t watch The Book of Boba Fett—slight but totally predictable spoiler incoming—will be surprised to find out that the characters will be happily reunited in Season 3 of The Mandalorian, despite Baby Yoda ending the second season by leaving to train with Deepfake Luke Skywalker.) That’s in large part because Pascal is so good at giving rugged individuals like Mando and Joel an undercurrent of vulnerability that’s born out of the characters contending with their own trauma. (Just as Joel loses his daughter at the beginning of the series, Mando is haunted by the death of his parents in a Separatist droid attack during the Clone Wars.) Add in his performance in Prospect, and Pascal has certainly cornered a niche market in the pop culture landscape. Turns out he’s an actor who does some of his best work opposite a lovable sidekick while he exudes serious fatherly energy. Or, as the actor told Vanity Fair last year: “Daddy is a state of mind, you know what I’m saying?”
At the same time, Pascal’s also proved to be just as capable playing second fiddle in a similar dynamic. While Pascal is technically the colead of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, the real selling point of the film is Nicolas Cage, who gets to play an amusingly heightened version of himself. When Cage accepts a gig to appear at a wealthy superfan’s birthday party in Spain for a much-needed paycheck, he discovers something of a kindred spirit in Javi (Pascal), who shares the actor’s fondness for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and owns plenty of bizarre Cage-centric ephemera. (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want Javi’s life-size replica of Cage’s character in Face/Off.) Considering Pascal was inspired by Cage’s performance in Vampire’s Kiss for his completely unhinged turn as the villainous Maxwell Lord in Wonder Woman 1984, the adoration Javi holds for the fictionalized version of Cage is hard to separate from the real thing, which plays perfectly into Massive Talent’s meta sensibilities.
More important, these roles have transformed Pascal from a That Guy into a genuine star: a thrilling evolution that might not have happened if it weren’t for fellow actor and close friend Sarah Paulson slipping his self-made Game of Thrones audition tape into the right hands. Juggling lead roles in two of the biggest shows on the planet, The Last of Us and The Mandalorian, is definitely easier to manage when one of the characters spends most of his time wearing a helmet—shout-out to Mando’s stunt doubles—but that doesn’t take anything away from what Pascal’s accomplished. His on-screen work may peak when he’s got another person or an adorable alien sidekick to play off of, but Pascal’s late-career emergence as an A-lister has been entirely his own doing.
