Please Stop Making Pedro Pascal Uncomfortable On the Red Carpet
I don’t think I’ve ever watched an interview with Pedro Pascal where I didn’t cringe at least once, and that has basically nothing to do with Pedro Pascal. Pedro Pascal is a great actor. His role as Javier Pena on Narcos is one of my personal favorites, but over the last decade or so it’s hard to look somewhere without seeing Pedro Pascal. He has made his way into being a bonafide a-list leading man with notable roles in The Mandalorian, Wonder Woman 1984, Narcos, Game of Thrones, and most recently the critically acclaimed television series based on “The Last of Us” video game. There is something I have consistently noticed with Pedro Pascal over the last few years though, and that’s the fact that very few interviewers can talk to him without making him violently uncomfortable.
My main theory on this is that Pedro Pascal is tired of not being able to make it through an interview without being sexually harassed by a fan using the interviewer as their proxy. Now, you might not be aware of what I’m talking about so let me explain. Over the last decade or so, it’s become more and more common for interviewers to show celebrities “thirst tweets” from fans. “Thirst tweets” are essentially just somebody remarking on the attractiveness of a certain celebrity- they can range from tame to x-rated, and there’s usually a range of reactions from the celebrities.
Now, as somebody that struggles with severe secondhand embarrassment I don’t partake in watching these very often. For one thing, I can guarantee the women hear plenty of comments about their appearance- it’s clear most of them are tired of it, and I can only imagine the daggers that shoot from their eyes towards their agents when the interviewer asks them about it. The men are typically surprised, taken aback, and very occasionally flattered, but the one consistent thing I have noticed with the vast majority of these celebrities, regardless of gender, is that they are uncomfortable. They might brush it off but you can almost always see a tiny cringe peeking out from behind that mask.
Now why am I choosing to focus on Pedro Pascal? Well frankly, Pedro is one of the only celebrities that has consistently and clearly demonstrated with his body language that he doesn’t particularly care for it, and nobody can take the hint. I don’t know Pedro Pascal personally, but from what I’ve gathered he seems to be a pretty friendly and measured guy, and he probably wouldn’t want to do a straight up confrontation on the red carpet.
This is the video that inspired me to write this piece. In it, an interviewer comes up to Pedro with several thirst tweets locked and loaded and asks him to pick his favorite and read it to the camera. After the world’s most uncomfortable silence Pascal tells the interviewer to get lost in the absolute nicest way possible and the video ends with him politely refusing to answer the question. This isn’t the only video where Pascal appears to be uncomfortable by an interviewer’s remarks. In this video he uncomfortably repeats the phrase “cool slutty daddy” used by a fan to describe him while he obviously tries not to lose his mind with embarrassment.
Pedro Pascal is 47 years old. Pedro Pascal probably doesn’t want you talking about him in the way you would talk about a 20 year old, because again he’s 47. It’s probably gonna take a lot for Pascal himself to actually tell these people to get lost in a blunt way because he seems like a super nice guy. I am not as nice as Pedro Pascal however, so I’ll say it: Journalists! Stop being the proxy for fans to harass Pedro Pascal. You’re making us all uncomfortable, especially the dude you are interviewing. Ask better questions.
I made this observation when I first saw the video, and I’m going to make it again here. Imagine the year is 1983. Scarface is about to come out, and Al Pacino is at the top of his game and one of the most famous actors in the world. Now imagine during every interview, Al Pacino is forced to read horny fan mail that was sent to the reporters that are supposed to be interviewing him professionally. It would be super weird to watch! Twitter has given “horny fan mail” a new home, one where you can send off your most debaucherous thoughts that are under 280 characters. People feel more comfortable with saying these things to celebrities, and it’s no wonder the vast majority choose to ignore it. When you’re a journalist and you’re asking these questions, you’re only serving the absolute worst parts of a celebrity’s fanbase. I for one, don’t care about what Pedro Pascal’s reaction to Twitter User Grogupilled42 saying they want to have sex with him is. I don’t care about Ana De Armas’s reaction to reading whatever gross stuff 19 year old boys are saying about her.
It doesn’t have to be this way. “React to this thing” is a lazy way of interviewing anyway, it’s clear none of these celebrities care for it, and most people don’t want to see it. Let’s make it a point in 2023 to ask better questions.
