Fantastic On and Off Screen: Pedro Pascal’s Dual Role

Social media influencers and content algorithms. Gatekept celebrities and sanitized interviews. The media landscape of celebrity culture in Hollywood is different now than it was before. Journalists no longer get the access they used to to hash out thoughtful questions with actors on-camera or on the record. In the wake of influencer interviews, short-form videos, and viral takeaways, a new fear has settled among the people who populate the pages of our newsfeeds.

What if you say something and it gets misconstrued or taken out of context? It’s easy to see why public figures would be reticent in today’s media cycle.

But then you have Pedro Pascal. The actor, who has a voice and opinion and refuses to let either be muzzled by fame.

The Chilean-American star of The Mandalorian and The Last of Us has entered the global stage as a bona fide A-lister. He headlines the new Marvel entry, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, in the role of Dr. Reed Richards. Fans can find his image all over billboards and on Instagram feeds in all its blockbusting glory. But beyond headshots, studio press junkets, and superhero costumes, Pascal has continued to leverage his star power to lend his voice to social and humanitarian causes.

Posting on Instagram since 2014, Pascal regularly brings his 11 million followers more than sponsored products and CGI. One post might be about food blockades in Gaza. Next, Pascal donned “Protect The Dolls” shirts in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community. Another could include links to Doctors Without Borders and The Trevor Project in the bio.

In a Q&A with Sky News ahead of The Fantastic Four London press tour, Pascal got candid about speaking one’s truth and the difficulties of doing so in today’s environment.

“I think it's very easy to get scared, no matter what you sort of talk about,” Pascal said.

He’s not wrong. One ill-phrased sentence, taken out of context, can trend on TikTok or get blown out of proportion into some inflammatory tabloid headline in a matter of hours. “There are so many different ways that things can get kind of fractured and have a life of itself,” he told the outlet.

But Pascal isn’t going to let that fear of doing so stop him from speaking out.

“There’s one thing that you can say and no matter what your intention behind it, it is lost in all of these different headlines, I suppose—but I'll never shut up.”

He lets the punchline punctuate the point. It’s a final sentence that lingers after the four-minute interview is over, and speaks to the type of person Pascal is outside of on-screen portrayals and press event photo-ops. It’s a rare insistence on staying authentic in an industry and public consciousness that is both fickle and fleeting. The stakes are high, but Pascal is still going to speak.

It’s not a decision that is made in a vacuum, and it’s not something that is without clear precedent. Pascal’s career to date provides a type of scaffolding for remaining true to himself and his own beliefs in an industry and for an audience looking for him to remain “engaged and authentic.”

Playing Reed Richards and Speaking Truth to Power

In The Fantastic Four: First Steps Pascal plays Reed Richards, a man who has spent the majority of his life as both a scientist and a superhero, tasked with the dual responsibility of not only protecting the world from some of its most destructive forces but being a good husband to Sue Storm as they prepare to welcome their first child into the world. He’s burdened with an entire planet on his shoulders, and by all accounts, a rather large ego to boot. But if there is one thing that can be said about Pascal, it’s that no matter how richly lit his next production may be, how viral he may become, or how many one-sided interviews he’s pushed through in media cycles, Pascal has never been willing to compromise on his principles.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a standalone, new telling of the Marvel Comic book classic directed by WandaVision’s Matt Shakman. Pascal stars alongside the likes of Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn in a retelling of Marvel’s most famous quartet of superheroes. But as audiences find themselves back in the theatre or streaming their first “major” blockbuster film in years, Pascal seems to be the type of authentic voice that audiences may be yearning for the most.

The route Pascal took to stardom wasn’t overnight, and it certainly didn’t happen from a place of social media engineering or carefully contrived brand-mascot celebrity. Pascal has spent years playing characters across wide-ranging series and complex genres that belie his newfound, but hardly unearned, marquee status. Pascal’s fame may be one thing, but his choice to speak and say something may be the most heroic thing about the “fantastic” star.