Pedro Pascal Is the Internet’s Daddy
Speaker A: Are you the daddy of the Internet?
Speaker B: What’s?
Speaker B: Internet daddy?
Speaker C: Me?
Speaker C: Yeah, you know.
Speaker A: Hi, I’m Rachel Hampton.
Speaker D: And I’m Madeline Ducharm, and you’re listening to ICYMI, in case you missed it, slate’s podcast about Internet culture.
Speaker A: And today I am joined by a fellow Slate and producer of our Daily News podcast, What’s Next?
Speaker A: Madeline Ducharm.
Speaker A: Madeline, hello.
Speaker B: Welcome to this show.
Speaker B: Hi.
Speaker D: I’m so thrilled to be here.
Speaker D: I am genuinely a longtime listener, one time producer of The Pod, and it’s really exciting to be on this side of things.
Speaker A: Also importantly, you are not just a producer extraordinaire.
Speaker A: You’ve also written for Slate about everything from Spring Awakening to Euphoria to Pro IRA Memes on TikTok, which is one of those Slate pieces that has just stayed in my head for years at this point.
Speaker D: Oh, my God, I love those memes.
Speaker D: Every once in a while, I check in on IRA TikTok just to see what the teens are cooking up about car bombs and things like that.
Speaker A: I was like, they’re cooking up Wild top cocktails.
Speaker D: Exactly.
Speaker A: You are also a prolific member of our Slate Thirst Channel, which I am convinced will cause somebody to quit one.
Speaker D: Day, but it’ll all be worth it.
Speaker A: Oh, of course it’ll have been worth it.
Speaker A: But before that happens, this channel is directly inspiring today’s episode, which is going to be a very fun one.
Speaker A: But before we get into that, who’s your first Internet celebrity crush?
Speaker A: Like, the crush that you kept up with religiously, who maybe still forms, like, 10% of your brain?
Speaker D: Oh, my God, this is such an easy answer for me.
Speaker B: Wow.
Speaker D: I was watching YouTube a lot, but I was watching really wholesome YouTube, and I feel like the best person on wholesome YouTube was Charlie McDonald, aka Charlie is so cool.
Speaker A: Like, Charlie, I also had the biggest crush on her.
Speaker D: She’s the hugest, huge crush.
Speaker D: Yeah, she’s British.
Speaker D: She’s from Bath in England, and she had that kind of, like, nerd charm that I particularly was obsessed with and then maybe horned up by as a teen.
Speaker D: And her old stick was like, Vlogging.
Speaker D: She’d write these funny little Ukulele songs.
Speaker D: She would do challenges from subscribers.
Speaker D: And honestly, I still have a crush on her.
Speaker D: She’s, like, 32.
Speaker D: She’s very much, like, appear now.
Speaker D: And she came back to YouTube very recently.
Speaker D: It’s been, like, since 2018.
Speaker D: She announced her transition, which is really exciting, or gender transition, that is.
Speaker D: And I was just so happy to see her back on YouTube doing her thing.
Speaker E: If it has been a while since you last saw me, I will now dress the elephant in the room.
Speaker E: I got bangs.
Speaker E: I mean, no, I’m a woman now.
Speaker E: Surprise.
Speaker E: So, yeah, I’m a transgender woman.
Speaker E: My pronouns are she, they, and I am continuing to use the name Charlie.
Speaker E: Those are the headlines.
Speaker A: I remember watching all of these videos.
Speaker A: I remember the red hair dyeing, and then that became her thing for a while.
Speaker A: Like, she just had red hair.
Speaker D: Yeah, totally.
Speaker A: I mean, that is, as I’ve said before, the perfect segue into our episode, which is about our and also everyone else’s current Internet crush.
Speaker A: Today we’re talking about the Internet’s favorite daddy, Pedro Pascal.
Speaker A: I have been on the Pedro train since I would say, like, 2014 when he played Oberyn Martel on Game of Thrones.
Speaker A: I watched Narcos.
Speaker A: I watched that weirdly, dark and sad heist movie that he did with Ben Affleck and Oscar Isaac, whose name always escaped me.
Speaker A: I looked it up.
Speaker A: It’s called Triple Frontier.
Speaker A: I’ve seen this movie.
Speaker A: I just don’t know what it’s called.
Speaker A: I’ve been in the trenches watching that one wired autocomplete interview for the past four years, and now the rest of the world is catching up, and I’m thrilled.
Speaker A: Join me.
Speaker D: This is an indoctrination camp.
Speaker A: It 100% is.
Speaker A: This is my programming camp.
Speaker A: When did your journey on the Pedro train begin?
Speaker D: Okay, so I’m new to the Pedro train, but I am a passionate passenger, I guess, metaphor.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker D: It’s wild to think about, though.
Speaker D: Basically every third video now on my for you page is Pedro and Bella Ramsay, like, fan edit, I guess you can’t even really call it a fan cam because they’re always set to these life ruiningly, sad Phoebe Bridgers songs because they’re all from The Last of US.
Speaker D: And he’s just an exceptional actor.
Speaker D: I think he’s really, really great in this TV show.
Speaker D: And I can’t believe I’m just learning now from this research and this show that he was playing sexually fluid on Game of Thrones.
Speaker B: Yes, he was.
Speaker D: And I’m like, that might be the thing that makes me go, finally watch Game of Thrones.
Speaker D: Or I could just, like, read the fanfic.
Speaker A: I would maybe say read the fanfic, but I would also say watch the show because there are some phenomenal scenes.
Speaker A: But before you do that, we have a show to do because for those of you all in the audience who are neither passengers like Madeline or conductors like me on the Pedro train, we’re here to give you the rundown on why everyone is suddenly obsessed with one Pedro Pascal.
Speaker A: We’re going to go through his journey from bit actor in every single crime procedural that ever aired on the USA Network to Game of Thrones bisexual icon Obrin Martel to his current height of Internet daddydom, which has included a fan cam sketch on Saturday Night Live, a Hot ones episode, and maybe some of the best spawn cons to ever exist.
Speaker A: More on that after a short break.
Speaker A: And we’re back.
Speaker A: So we’ve both, I think, already established where our parasocial relationships with Pedro began because neither of us know this man.
Speaker A: I would like to make that clear.
Speaker A: But we need to go further back just to establish, I think, how big of a deal this current moment is.
Speaker A: So Jose Pedro Bama Seda Pascal was born on April 2, 1975, in Santiago, Chile.
Speaker A: He’s been acting since he graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 1997.
Speaker A: The beginning of his career was basically those bit parts that I feel like every single working actor and especially working actors of color have to do.
Speaker A: He was on Law and Order Criminal Intent and Law and Order Special Victims.
Speaker A: He was on Graceland, which is a show I’m kind of convinced that only I watched.
Speaker A: Pedro was also on Buffy the Vampire Slayer for, like, an episode.
Speaker A: He was on The Good Wife.
Speaker A: He was on Homeland.
Speaker A: He was on The Mentalist, which is, again, another one of those shows that I’m like, did I fever dream those commercials?
Speaker D: Who watched that?
Speaker B: Somebody did.
Speaker D: Wow.
Speaker A: But his big break came in 2013 when he was cast as Obrin Martel in the fourth season of Game of Thrones, which I kind of think lays the groundwork for his later ascendancy to the top of the thirst charts.
Speaker A: I’m going to try to avoid spoilers, but also at this point, this season is almost ten years old at this point.
Speaker A: So if you’re spoiled, that’s not my fault.
Speaker A: Anyway, Oberin arrives in Westeros, which is the kingdom where Game of Thrones takes place, basically to f*** s*** up.
Speaker F: We know why all the world hates runs.
Speaker F: You think you’re gold and your lions and your gold lions make you better than everyone.
Speaker F: Let me tell you a secret.
Speaker F: You’re not a golden lion.
Speaker F: You’re just a pink little man who’s far too slow on the draw.
Speaker A: Like, he’s just being rude and a little sassy and a little bit of a detective trying to figure out what’s going on with the Lannisters.
Speaker A: So he’s kind of like skulking around or being in dark corners wearing beautiful robes.
Speaker A: He also is, as I said, a bisexual king and has this very hot paramour who he has very hot threesomes with.
Speaker D: I had no idea.
Speaker D: I can’t believe I missed this.
Speaker A: I can’t believe you missed it either.
Speaker A: It was a phenomenal season.
Speaker A: The fourth season is maybe one of the best.
Speaker A: So, importantly, Game of Thrones has, like, this huge legacy fandom from the books and then from these previous seasons, there was already, like, a lot of hype around Oberyn’s character.
Speaker A: Book readers were really looking forward to seeing how he was going to be portrayed.
Speaker A: And from what I understand, both people who exclusively watch the show and people who watch the show and wrap the books, both of them enjoyed his performance as Oprah, which is kind of rare when you think about how casting works for book adaptations.
Speaker D: I think there’s a similar thing happening with The Last of US, too, because that was originally a video game.
Speaker D: But people, at least in my corners of the Internet, seem very, very happy with the sort of justice he did the character in this show.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker A: Which means that in doing these characters justice, he kind of becomes the canon description of the character, which means that there’s just a s*** ton of fanfic and fan art out there about Pedro as Obran Martel.
Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, I checked Archive of Our Own while you were explaining all that, and there’s like over 2000 entries.
Speaker D: The Oberon tag that’s really respectable for a character with just a single season arc on the show.
Speaker A: So this is the first really strong entry in the Pedro Thirst canon.
Speaker A: The next one is Narcos, which first aired in 2015, a Netflix show that’s based on the story of Pablo Escobar and the DEA agent who took him down.
Speaker A: Pedro Pascal plays DEA Agent Javier Pena.
Speaker A: I’m not going to get into the politics of this show.
Speaker A: Suffice to say that the drug war was a weird time.
Speaker A: Still a weird time going on.
Speaker A: Still a weird time.
Speaker A: And you know what?
Speaker A: That’s all we need to say about that.
Speaker A: But the show Narcos is extremely watchable and it taught me five words of Spanish.
Speaker A: And also that Pedro just looks great in a tight pair of jeans.
Speaker D: I’m personally brave enough to admit that years and years and years of television propaganda has gotten to my brain because I’m basically into any actor who’s playing a fed with a bulletproof vest like a handgun.
Speaker A: No, we can’t get into it.
Speaker A: Anyway, Narcos is decently, well reviewed, specifically the third season, which is the final season, which is led by Pedro.
Speaker A: So Narcos finishes airing in 2017, and from there, Pedro continues to get steady work.
Speaker A: In 2018, he stars in The Equalizer Two with Denzel Washington.
Speaker A: In 2019, he stars in that movie whose name I keep forgetting, triple Frontier with his bestie Oscar Isaac and also Ben Affleck is there.
Speaker D: Sure, why not?
Speaker A: That same year, he stars in The Mandalorian, which is the next really big entry in the Pedro timeline.
Speaker A: But before we get into that, I just want to go back to Triple Frontier.
Speaker A: Not because it’s a good movie, but importantly, the press junket for this movie gives us one of the most important artifacts in the Pedro timeline.
Speaker A: A wired autocomplete interview with Oscar Isaac.
Speaker D: Oh my god, I love these videos.
Speaker D: I love form a video because it’s like Wired the Magazine, which is a print magazine and also a digital online publication.
Speaker D: They do really good work too.
Speaker D: They put a celebrity on camera.
Speaker D: It’s like a stark white background.
Speaker D: And the celebrity is forced to hold a poster board cutout of a Google search.
Speaker D: And it’s like full of all these kind of incomplete questions that are covered up by a piece of paper.
Speaker D: And then the celebrity has to do this sort of like humiliating little funny ritual where they rip off the white paper to reveal what the rest of the commonly searched questions are about them.
Speaker C: Pedro Pascal.
Speaker B: Pedro Pascal dancing.
Speaker B: You dance a lot?
Speaker C: Yeah, I dance.
Speaker C: Is there a video of you dancing on the Internet.
Speaker C: I don’t know, but I realized that I didn’t exercise, but I would go out dancing, and that was my exercising.
Speaker D: And if you drink Pedro Pascal dancing, I love that.
Speaker D: That’s, like, one of the first things that comes up from a Google Autocomplete search.
Speaker D: Google’s like, oh, you want to see this guy dance?
Speaker D: I know you do.
Speaker A: It’s so obvious.
Speaker A: And this video of Pedro and Oscar is, like, truly one of my favorite things on the Internet.
Speaker A: Like, I have watched it so many times.
Speaker A: I’ve put it in our Thirst channel so many times.
Speaker A: It’s garnered over 10 million views since it was published in March 2019.
Speaker A: And I would say at least 1000 of those are from me alone.
Speaker D: More.
Speaker A: It’s so fun and I think kind of gets to the heart of what will eventually endear patriots of the whole world, which is he just seems like a fun guy to hang around with.
Speaker D: Oh, my God.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Speaker D: There’s also a great moment in that video where it’s like, who does Pedro Pascal look like?
Speaker D: Which is a very weird thing that it’s, like, so clear.
Speaker D: Some person was like, this guy looks like someone, but who is it?
Speaker D: And Pedro says, like, one time I got tarantino and also a baby chicken.
Speaker D: I don’t know, but it’s cute.
Speaker D: And he’s, like, laughing at himself in a very charming way.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker A: I feel like a lot of actors are super self serious.
Speaker A: Austin Butler.
Speaker D: Oh, my God.
Speaker D: Don’t tell Natira.
Speaker D: Don’t tell Nadira.
Speaker A: Hi, Nadira.
Speaker A: But it’s just impossible to imagine what they’d be like at a dive bar, just hanging out.
Speaker A: And to be clear, actors don’t owe us that.
Speaker A: They don’t owe us familiarity.
Speaker A: Like, I don’t need to know what Austin Butler is like hanging out at a dive bar.
Speaker A: But maybe because Pedro’s fame art came a bit later in his life when he was more comfortable with who he is or maybe just because that’s the kind of person he is, but he always just comes across as someone who’s having fun.
Speaker A: Like having fun doing this job, not taking it super seriously.
Speaker A: And it’s infectious to watch.
Speaker D: It really is.
Speaker D: I also think he’s kind of bewildered by the fact that he’s so successful now, and it’s just he’s so delighted that it’s finally happened for himself.
Speaker D: I think if you were, like, withering away on the various laws and orders, I would also be so thrilled that somebody was asking you to do something different and something more ambitious.
Speaker D: Yeah.
Speaker A: Which takes us back to the timeline, which is, I think, the real moment where he ascended into everybody’s home because we’ve got the Mandalorian, which started airing in 2019, and introduced the world both to Baby Yoda.
Speaker A: I am aware it’s not actually Baby Yoda.
Speaker A: Please, no one tell me.
Speaker A: I know.
Speaker A: And also introduce the world to Pedro Pascal as the Mandalorian, who is a bounty hunter who’s basically put in charge of said baby yoda.
Speaker A: And if there’s anything the world loves, it’s a gruff man who’s now responsible for a child.
Speaker A: More on that later.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
Speaker A: But I have to admit, I haven’t seen the Mandalorian.
Speaker A: I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, though my family is, but from what I understand, it’s, like, a pretty good show.
Speaker D: Yeah, it’s, like, definitely one of those series that got, like, random American families to be like, all right, I guess I’ll add this to my monthly bill.
Speaker A: Exactly.
Speaker A: I’ll finally get Disney Plus.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: Like, okay, fine with my arm.
Speaker A: It’s, like, really striking to me that he really starts to gain or continues to gain international recognition in a role where he is almost constantly wearing a helmet.
Speaker A: You don’t really see his face for most of the show, which seems almost antithetical to Thirst.
Speaker A: But then I think about people like anonymous YouTuber Corpse Husband, who has the h******* fans in the world, despite the fact that the only thing we know about Corpse Husband or what we know of what he looks like is his voice.
Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, this podcaster thing, too, is that people will fall in love with just your voice.
Speaker D: And there’s, like, a whole thing.
Speaker D: I don’t know if you’ve gotten those.
Speaker A: Emails, but that’s I have not.
Speaker A: I doubt anyone is falling in love with my voice.
Speaker A: That’d be wild.
Speaker A: But voice thirst is real, I will say totally.
Speaker D: And I think in an interview somewhere, he’s even said that The Mandalorian voice is like, kind of a bedroom voice, which is like, on the Disney show.
Speaker D: But also, I mean, the helmet is pretty sexy.
Speaker D: It’s very sleek.
Speaker D: He looks good.
Speaker D: Anything can be sexy if the voice is also sexy.
Speaker A: That is true.
Speaker A: That is true.
Speaker A: And importantly, Star Wars is yet another franchise with, like, a huge legacy audience, much like Game of Thrones.
Speaker A: So as the years go by, Pedro is becoming more and more of, if not like, a household name, at least like, a household face.
Speaker D: Right?
Speaker D: People are like, who does this guy look like?
Speaker A: Exactly.
Speaker A: Like, between Narcos, Game of Thrones and The Mandalorian, I would venture that most people who watch a fair amount of television have seen him in something that he is starring in.
Speaker D: Sure.
Speaker A: And that doesn’t even include Wonder Woman 1984.
Speaker A: Another thing that he starred in that I unfortunately saw.
Speaker D: We can’t go there.
Speaker A: We can’t go there.
Speaker A: But it introduced him to more and more audiences so that by the time we get to the moment where we’re currently at, most people recognized him.
Speaker A: They would think, oh, yeah, that guy.
Speaker A: I know him.
Speaker A: Which means by the time the last post premieres in January 2023, he’s primed and ready.
Speaker A: And now so are all of us.
Speaker A: We’re ready.
Speaker D: Toasted golden brown.
Speaker B: Let’s go.
Speaker A: Ready for a little bit of butter?
Speaker A: Exactly.
Speaker A: So we’ve laid the groundwork for the Pedro Pascal renaissance, and now it’s time to get into the thing that has firmly catapulted him into a new level of fame and Internet thirst.
Speaker A: After a short break, we’ll be talking about The Last of US, about hot ones, and about what it means to become the Internet’s daddy.
Speaker B: Woo.
Speaker B: Hey, y’all.
Speaker A: I wanted to say a quick hello to our Spotify listeners.
Speaker A: Thank you for being here.
Speaker A: If you found us through the daily drive playlist, that is phenomenal.
Speaker A: We’re so happy you’re listening and we would love it if you could take the extra step to follow ICYMI on Spotify.
Speaker A: ICYMI, or in case you missed it, is Slate’s podcast about Internet culture hosted by me, Rachel Hampton.
Speaker A: Every Wednesday and Saturday, we explore what’s trending at the top of your feeds.
Speaker A: We investigate the ghosts of Internet past and just generally try to help you sound like the smartest person in your group.
Speaker A: Chat.
Speaker A: Search ICYMI in the Spotify app and follow us so you never miss an episode like this past Wednesdays, which was an episode we did with our own dear Prudence.
Speaker A: And thank you again for tuning in.
Speaker A: And we’re back and it’s time for The Last of US.
Speaker A: But before we get into explanation, it’s important to note that Pedro’s booked and busy between the mandalorian and The Last of US.
Speaker A: Also important, the mandalorian is still ongoing, so there really is no between.
Speaker A: It is just happening, everything, everywhere, all at once.
Speaker A: He’s featured as one of People’s sexiest Men Alive in 2020.
Speaker A: In 2021, he’s cast in a Judge Abatto movie.
Speaker A: He stars in a comedy with Nicholas Cage, who I think is one of his biggest idols.
Speaker A: That premieres at south by Southwest in 2022.
Speaker A: And now there’s The Last of US, the biggest show of the past, like three months that is about fungus and also a pandemic, from what I understand.
Speaker D: Well, it’s about like, the least delicious mushroom you could ever encounter.
Speaker D: And I’m very much a fan of the fungi.
Speaker D: The fungi, whatever you want to say.
Speaker D: And that’s scary to me.
Speaker D: I don’t like the idea of a mushroom.
Speaker D: That is scary.
Speaker D: No, actually, though, it’s a show.
Speaker D: It’s based on this acclaimed video game that came out like, ten years ago.
Speaker D: It’s about the 20 year aftermath of a horrific pandemic in which a fungi called cordyceps, it takes over people’s brains, it makes people loopy, violent cannibalistic, and if you get bit by somebody with the infection, they’re called infected, not zombies.
Speaker D: It’s a very highbrow show.
Speaker D: You’ll eventually have your skull, like, split open by the mushrooms from within you.
Speaker D: Your body gets kind of enveloped in this slimy, bright fungi.
Speaker D: It’s disgusting and nightmare inducing, but also kind of pretty.
Speaker D: I don’t know, it’s strange.
Speaker A: I’m reminded more and more why I haven’t watched this show, but Pedro comes in at some point.
Speaker A: That’s the one thing that’s almost gotten me.
Speaker A: It’s almost hooked me.
Speaker D: Right.
Speaker D: So he is one of our two main characters, basically one part of the US.
Speaker D: In the title.
Speaker D: He’s this, like, taciturn Texan man who, on the first day of the outbreak 20 years prior to the events of the show, lost his teenage daughter in sort of the zombie chaos.
Speaker D: It’s tragic.
Speaker D: It’s so sad.
Speaker D: And 20 years later, he’s still carrying that grief.
Speaker D: But he’s also kind of involved in smuggling, which is kind of like the inverse of his narcos character.
Speaker D: But anyway, the show really picks up steam when he’s tasked by this revolutionary group, the Fireflies.
Speaker D: They’re, like, trying to liberate America.
Speaker D: He’s tasked by them to get a very, very special 14 year old girl across the country to a research hospital.
Speaker D: And that teenager is this foul mouthed, very spunky orphan named Ellie.
Speaker D: And Ellie’s played with so much verve and energy by Bella Ramsay, and she’s also mysteriously immune to cordyceps.
Speaker D: And so within the world of The Last of US, everybody like these revolutionaries seem to think that her immunity is the key to creating a vaccine that ends this, like, 20 year misery parade.
Speaker D: And of course, Joel, the character played by Pedro, initially sees Ellie kind of as cargo, and it was a way for him to get, I think, a truck, like something he needs.
Speaker D: And he even calls her cargo to her face.
Speaker D: It’s very mean.
Speaker A: Wow.
Speaker D: But it kind of as they suffer through unspeakable horror after unspeakable horror, their relationship develops into this inevitable father daughter dynamic.
Speaker D: And now he’s found a beautiful replacement daughter, I guess.
Speaker D: Very crude way to think about it.
Speaker A: What bonds you closer together than unspeakable horror after unspeakable horror?
Speaker D: There are so many.
Speaker A: Every single trauma bonds are the strongest bonds I have in my life.
Speaker D: This show just wouldn’t work without him at the center.
Speaker D: He’s being these two things at once a very ruthless survivor, he resorts to vicious violence all the time to make it through.
Speaker D: And he’s this soft hearted, reluctant parent who is literally weeping in various episodes because he’s so afraid of letting himself love again and letting anyone else in again.
Speaker D: I mean, it’s a very similar dynamic to the Mandalorian yes.
Speaker D: Where he’s, like, surrogate parent again.
Speaker D: And so, naturally, that leads him to Internet daddy dumb.
Speaker A: I mean, once you have two daddy roles, like, what else could you possibly be doing?
Speaker D: Exactly.
Speaker A: I’m assuming there are particular moments amid the beautiful horror of this show that the Internet has latched onto.
Speaker D: Oh, my God.
Speaker D: Yes.
Speaker D: So I think the biggest one is Pedro as Joel, embracing sweet Ellie, played by Bella Ramsay after yet another unspeakable horror and reassuring her and saying, I’ve got you, baby girl.
Speaker F: It’s okay, baby girl.
Speaker D: And it’s funny because the context of that scene is upsetting and terrifying.
Speaker D: Ellie has just stabbed a pedophile kidnapper dozens of times in the face in a burning building.
Speaker D: And that didn’t stop the internet from immediately tweeting about how much they would like to be baby girl and how much they would like to be got.
Speaker A: I know you’re telling me this scene is surrounded by horror, and yet all I heard, the only thing that I heard over the past five minutes, was baby girl.
Speaker D: There is a weird inverse reaction to the scene, too, where people on the Internet also said, have decided now that the baby girl in question is Joel again, the vicious, brutal, taciturn Texan man.
Speaker D: But that also makes Pedro the baby girl.
Speaker D: I mean, anything is really possible on the thirsty Internet.
Speaker A: It really is true.
Speaker A: And there is this current kind of variation of thirst where people are saying he’s still baby girl coded, which I think Pedro unintentionally fed into with saying that.
Speaker D: And I love the callback to something he says to his dying daughter.
Speaker D: His dying listen, biological daughter.
Speaker A: We find thirst in hopeless places.
Speaker D: We did find thirst in a hopeless place.
Speaker D: Continually hopeless.
Speaker D: Always hopeless.
Speaker A: So with the premiere of The Last of US comes just a s*** ton of media appearances for him, as happens when you’re promoting something, which also means there are so many opportunities to fall in love with this man.
Speaker A: For example, back in April, he did one of those lie detector videos with Vanity Fair, which is pretty self explanatory.
Speaker A: They strap a lie detector on a celebrity and ask him a bunch of questions.
Speaker D: So funny.
Speaker A: This technically isn’t part of The Last of US press tour just because it happens in April, but it does become subsumed into a larger Pascalissance narrative fancam fodder.
Speaker A: And this video, like the Wired autocomplete one, really highlights just how good he is at being a celebrity, which is a real talent.
Speaker A: Not everyone’s good at being a celebrity.
Speaker A: He’s just, like, charming and giggly and just seems like he wants to have fun, even as the tone of the interview, as all of these lie detector videos are, is, like, super ironically serious, right?
Speaker A: Like, at one point, they ask if he ever looks at Instagram pages dedicated to him being a heartthrob to make himself feel better, and I can’t summarize his answer.
Speaker A: It’s just so funny, like, the way he reacts.
Speaker D: Do you ever look at Instagram accounts devoted to you being a heartthrob when you’re feeling down?
Speaker C: Yes, I do.
Speaker D: What’s your favorite account?
Speaker C: It’s called Pedro Pascal Fan account.
Speaker D: I don’t know.
Speaker D: I kind of imagine I’d be doing that too, undoubtedly.
Speaker A: It’s so relatable.
Speaker D: I also love the part where he’s, like, talking about encountering stuff about him on the Internet and the strangest thing he’s seen about himself on the Internet, and his response is just so funny.
Speaker D: He says that somebody said I looked like Orlando Bloom if he was hit in the face with a shovel.
Speaker D: It’s not the kindest description, but it is kind of accurate.
Speaker D: And he also seems flattered.
Speaker A: It’s like the baby chicken thing where he’s just like, this is what I look like.
Speaker A: There’s just something so refreshing about the way he reacts to fame.
Speaker A: It’s this kind of bemused gratitude that’s clearly not going to his head.
Speaker A: But he’s also more than down to play along with.
Speaker A: I think the best example of this is the infamous I Am your cool, slutty Daddy clip on the red carpet for the premiere of The Last of US.
Speaker A: He is shown a tweet where someone says they think of him as their cool, sleddy father, and this is how he responds.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: I am your cool, sleddy daddy.
Speaker B: Oh, my God.
Speaker B: It’s so good.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: He’s had so many great red carpet moments over the past few months, and I just think I also love how much he engages with the people who are interviewing him.
Speaker D: Like, he goes out of his way to compliment an interviewer’s.
Speaker D: Nails.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker D: Sweet.
Speaker A: He does it all the time.
Speaker A: There’s a whole compilation of this that I saw the other day on TikTok from At Simply neological.
Speaker D: And now that we’re talking about TikTok, we do have to get into how feral that app is for him.
Speaker A: Bro, I understand this is a product of my own choices, but truly, every 10th video on my FYP is about Pedro.
Speaker A: Like, on TikTok, the hashtag Pedro Pascal has 5.8 billion views, and Pedro Pascal daddy has 21.8 million views.
Speaker A: And those tags are just full of people making compilations like the one I just mentioned or making edits like this one from At Def Kree, which has just become, I think, the unofficial edit of the Pedro fandom.
Speaker A: It’s got over 31 million views as of the time of recording, and it features clips from his role in Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman Golden Circle, where he plays yet another agent.
Speaker C: How would you like to ride home.
Speaker F: On a real cowboy?
Speaker F: I got a six pack of cold ones on.
Speaker C: Right?
Speaker F: So my room is out all night, so you can scream my name as.
Speaker C: Loud as you need to.
Speaker B: Sugar, I like your body’s.
Speaker B: Bang.
Speaker D: It is like a virtuosically edited fan cam.
Speaker D: It’s it’s a immaculate, like it’s true.
Speaker A: It’s an art form.
Speaker A: And it’s becoming just the creation of Pedro Pascal fan edits is becoming its own art form.
Speaker D: Yeah, he’s just fully ascended to, like, a whole new level of thirst.
Speaker D: I mean, maybe even his own level.
Speaker D: It feels different.
Speaker B: It does.
Speaker A: Way back in August, nadira Goff and I did an episode detailing what makes a perfect Internet boyfriend, and we came down to, like, three important components, which are looks, obviously, charisma, and the ability to capitalize on a moment.
Speaker A: And I would argue that Pedro has all three in spades.
Speaker D: Oh, my God.
Speaker D: Absolutely.
Speaker D: I mean, he’s been everywhere, of course, for the last few months, and he even had his turn hosting SNL, where he did a whole sketch about fan cams, and in it, he’s a teacher whose students can’t stop making fan cams of him.
Speaker C: Let’s start.
Speaker C: First rule do.
Speaker C: Not access inappropriate content online and do not bully on social media.
Speaker B: Come on, girl.
Speaker B: Eat it up.
Speaker C: Thank you, I think.
Speaker C: And here’s a new rule as of today, do not make fan cams of school staff such as this.
Speaker D: It’s extremely good.
Speaker B: It is.
Speaker A: And then he did Hot Ones last week.
Speaker A: And just to kind of give a sense of scale of his ascendancy the Wired video I mentioned before that got 10 million views over four years, pedro’s Hot Ones video got over 10 million views in a week.
Speaker D: Oh, my God.
Speaker A: That is the scale at which he is growing in the past, like, four years.
Speaker A: And I think we’ve kind of described what Pedro’s appeal is.
Speaker A: But this interview, I think, really kind of gets to the heart of it in a way that I love.
Speaker A: Truly, the easiest way to describe it is he just seems like a good guy.
Speaker A: He just seems like a really good guy.
Speaker A: And the bar is on the floor.
Speaker A: But it’s also really rare to encounter someone whose kindness kind of radiates off of them.
Speaker A: Again, I don’t know this man, but the vibes are just immaculate.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker D: And, I mean, I think that’s part of the reason why that SNL sketch works so well, because he does kind of have teacher energy.
Speaker B: He does.
Speaker D: And it’s just so clear, too, that’s how he’s approaching a lot of the last of us, too.
Speaker D: He seems to, at least in the press appearances I’ve seen, become this really wonderful acting mentor and life mentor to his 19 year old costar, Bella Ramsay.
Speaker D: And in this recent interview, the two of them are discussing their sort of real life relationship and how it mirrors their onscreen dynamic.
Speaker D: And Pedro even calls Bella his blessing.
Speaker D: It’s so, so sweet.
Speaker C: Bella ramsay plays ellie I call her Belly, and she’s my blessing.
Speaker A: Like, how often do you really have someone that you both thirst over and also go, like, hard eyed over?
Speaker A: I think it’s kind of a rare combination, and it’s the appeal of the.
Speaker B: Daddy, I think it is.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And there’s something to say about how even throughout all of this fame cycle, he clearly has boundaries for himself.
Speaker A: Even while playing into the Internet’s general horniness for him, he’ll say s*** like, I’m your cool, sleddy daddy.
Speaker A: But he’ll also refuse to read Thirst Tweets.
Speaker D: I would love if you could read a few Thirst Tweets that the Internet has for you.
Speaker D: You can read them to camera.
Speaker C: No.
Speaker A: For your enjoyment, which I think is more than fair.
Speaker A: Some Thirst Tweets are kind of just basically sexual harassment.
Speaker A: If read to the object of the Thirst Tweet, I’m not saying don’t send them.
Speaker A: I am saying maybe I love the BuzzFeed Thirst Tweets video as much as the next person, but it’s starting to approach that level of asking people to read fanfic about them, which don’t.
Speaker D: And I honestly, I don’t think anybody composing the thirst tweets is assuming that they will make their way to the person.
Speaker D: And frankly, I just think it’s bad for everyone.
Speaker D: And I’d really much rather just listen to Pedro get told on the red carpet that Buffy icon Sarah Michelle Geller posted about him.
Speaker D: They were in one singular episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer together in 1999.
Speaker D: And talk about capitalizing on the moment.
Speaker D: Miss Geller shared a photo of the two of them, and she also recently learned what Hashtag mother is, and she learned that she’s been being called Mother.
Speaker D: And so she, of course, shared this photo of the two of them with the caption, when Hashtag mother met Hashtag father.
Speaker G: So something that’s resurfaced is a lot of appearances that you’ve done on TV show.
Speaker G: Sarah Michelle Geller posted about you being on Buffy.
Speaker G: You were on Undressed, which I just found out.
Speaker C: Sarah Michelle Geller posted about me?
Speaker D: Yes.
Speaker C: I need to get on the World Wide Web.
Speaker C: You’re on Instagram online.
Speaker C: I am on Instagram, but I guess I’m not scrolling enough.
Speaker G: But that’s to say, if you could insert yourself in any show or TV show or movie or franchise of all time, which one would you want to do?
Speaker C: Where is the Sarah Michelle Geller?
Speaker G: It’s on instagram.
Speaker G: Look, I’ll show it to you right now.
Speaker A: When famous people fangirl over other famous people, it’s like, Ah, yes.
Speaker A: The celebrities, they’re just like us.
Speaker A: I love it.
Speaker A: It’s beautiful, right?
Speaker A: Like, he somehow managed to remain relatable throughout all of this, which is very sweet.
Speaker A: I love it for him.
Speaker A: I love it for us.
Speaker A: He recently did an ad for a mobile game called Merge Mansion, which is like one of those games you play on your phone when you’re in the doctor’s office and you’re bored, and he does like, an entire ad for it that almost looks like a trailer for a movie.
Speaker D: Yeah, it’s like very, very high concept and, like, high budget yes.
Speaker A: For a mobile game.
Speaker A: And it just made me think, because of the kind of person that he is, I was just like, who approached who about this?
Speaker A: I could 100% see him being like, I love this game.
Speaker A: What if we partnered with them and did what is basically knives out but for this game?
Speaker D: Yeah.
Speaker D: And the and the game does not look even a quarter as good as the trailer looks, but it did work on me.
Speaker D: I kind of want to play the game now.
Speaker A: And that’s the promise of Pedro Pascal.
Speaker A: He is our cool, sleddy daddy, and he gets us to play Merge Mansion.
Speaker D: Merge me daddy.
Speaker A: All right, that is the show.
Speaker A: We back in your feed on Wednesday, so please subscribe it is the best way to never miss an episode, to never miss a deep dive into the Internet’s.
Speaker A: Current daddy of the year.
Speaker A: Please leave a rating and review an Apple or Spotify and tell your friends about us.
Speaker A: Tell Pedro Pascal about us.
Speaker A: You can follow us on Twitter at ICYMI underscore pod, which is also where you can DM us your questions, like why is everyone obsessed with Pedro Pascal?
Speaker A: And you can also always drop us a note at icymi@slate.com.
Speaker D: ICYMI is produced by Daniel Schrader and Rachel Hampton, with special thanks to Sierra Spragley.
Speaker D: Ricks.
Speaker D: Daisy Rosario is our senior supervising producer, and Alicia Montgomery is Slate’s VP of Audio.
Speaker A: See you online or on mandalore.
