Pedro Pascal almost starred in this hit LGBTQIA+ dramedy.
Over the last few years, the beloved talent has reached new heights of success due to his critically acclaimed performances, loveable personality, and status as the internet’s new “daddy.”
However, before securing roles on shows like The Mandalorian and The Last of Us, he almost starred in HBO’s hit LGBTQIA+ series, Looking.
Hailed as a modern take on gay-themed dramas (and as the gay version of Sex and the City and Girls), the series followed Patrick Murray (Jonathan Groff) and his two friends Agustín (Frankie J Alvarez) and Dom (Murray Bartlett) as they navigate, love, friendship, heartbreak and gay culture in San Francisco.
The cast of Looking also featured Russell Tovey as Kevin, Raúl Castillo as Richie, Daniel Franzese as Eddie and Lauren Weedman as Doris.
In an immersive GQ piece celebrating the show’s 10th anniversary, casting director Carmen Cuba and director Andrew Haigh reflected on the casting process for the series.
“I can’t remember there being pressure to cast bigger names. And then it’s also, what were those bigger names? We didn’t need all of the cast to be queer in real life, but we certainly wanted some of them to be,” the All of Us Strangers director explained.
Cuba echoed similar sentiments before name-dropping Pascal as one of the actors who read for a role in the show.
“Especially in TV, you meet a lot of people… Pedro Pascal was someone we met [for a role on Looking], and from that, I put him on Narcos,” she said.
“The thing with Pedro, it was like he was testing on a million things. So many of these things, as you know, in casting, it’s just like scheduling. Does scheduling work? Does the group? Because in this, we were really casting a group.”
While he didn’t land a part in Looking, Pascal has gone on to star in an array of LGBTQIA+ inclusive projects, including Pedro Almodóvar’s short film Strange Way of Life.
With a run time of 31 minutes, the film follows Silva (Pascal) and a sheriff named Jake (Ethan Hawke) as they navigate their complicated past and uncertain romantic future.
The official synopsis reads: “A man rides a horse across the desert that separates him from Bitter Creek. He comes to visit Sheriff Jake. Twenty-five years earlier, both the sheriff and Silva, the rancher who rides out to meet him, worked together as hired gunmen.
“Silva visits him with the excuse of reuniting with his friend from his youth, and they do indeed celebrate their meeting, but the next morning Sheriff Jake tells him that the reason for his trip is not to go down the memory lane of their old friendship…”
Lastly, Pascal has also played queer characters in MTV’s Undressed, and in another hit HBO series Game of Thrones.
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