Pedro Pascal may have turned into a household name in the pop culture landscape thanks to The Mandalorian and The Last of Us, but the actor has just revealed he wouldn’t have been able to survive the grueling filming schedules if it weren’t for a convenient element in Din Djarin’s apparel.
The Mandalorian does such a seamless job of integrating the titular bounty hunter into every scene of the show that the character takes on an entire life of its own independent of Pedro Pascal. Even his voice comes out through a helmet apparatus, so we wouldn’t blame you if you forgot it’s the Chilean thespian’s unmistakable face pushing that body forward.
Well, it just so happens Pedro Pascal actually wasn’t there in most of the scenes. The actor recently sat down for an episode of Drama Actor Roundtable and revealed that not only is his role in The Mandalorian mostly limited to voice acting, but that it’s actually the convenience that allowed him to say “yes” to The Last of Us.
“For a lot of it, yeah. There was an extended amount of experimentation. Frankly, my body wasn’t up to the task as far as the four months of it. Amazingly, it gave me the opportunity to be able to go and do something else.”
You can hear Pascal’s words for yourself at around the 30:00 mark:
It’s somewhat bemusing to realize Din Djarin never once removed his helmet in season three, so portraying the character must have been a walk in the park for Pascal.
That’s good news for Lucasfilm as well, since they don’t really need to have the actor around to continue making The Mandalorian for the foreseeable future.
As the character himself would say: “This is the way.”