The 'daddy' state of mind: what makes Pedro Pascal so watchable?

Take it from Pedro Pascal: "daddy" is a state of mind.

From Game of Thrones, to Narcos, to an early career spot on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Pedro Pascal has been in the game for a while — so why is he only now being crowned the Internet's latest crush?

Our end-of-week Group Chat gets into all this and more, with the help of New York Magazine writer Kathryn VanArendonk, CBC Unreserved's pop culture correspondent Richard Van Camp, and musician/producer Matt Hart.

We've included some highlights below. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

The heartthrobification of Pedro Pascal

Elamin: Every now and then, an actor comes along who reaches a level of stardom that goes well beyond rave reviews, well beyond awards, well beyond talk show appearances — into the stratosphere. And right now, that person is Pedro Pascal. Pedro is the star of HBO's The Last of Us, one of the most talked-about shows on TV right now. This week is also a return to another high-profile role — he's got the lead role in the Star Wars spinoff The Mandalorian. 

Let me start with you, Kathryn. Pedro has had a long career in television; he's not a new guy who just burst on the scene last week or something. He's gone as far back as a 1999 appearance in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Why do you think that this is happening right now?

Kathryn: Well, as with everything in pop culture, there are all of these factors that sort of feed into this vast, magical moment when things happen largely for no particular reason, except also for like ten different reasons at the same time, and so that's kind of what's happening with him, I think. Part of it is that some actors happen to really work at certain kinds of personas in ways that they just did not make sense when they were 18 or 25 — something about their physicality and their performance, and the sort of mood that they bring to a screen is different when they can be the daddy, which is very clearly what's happening with Pedro, right? He's hit peak daddy, and we're all like, "yes, thank you." 

But the other thing is just a fluke of timing, or I guess you could also say congrats to Pedro's agents who created in part this fluke of timing, where he has this huge blockbuster HBO performance at the same time that Mandalorian has been slowly becoming a Star Wars show that people actually are fond of. I think that's actually less true now than it was when it originally came out, but at the same time, now watching it, you're like, take off your helmet!  

Elamin: That's exactly the tone of it, right? This is more than just an actor having a moment. It feels like a fever dream of adoration. Every day of this week, Pedro has been the main character of the Internet. Everybody calls him "daddy," and I don't mean this like a father. I mean this in like a—well, you know what I mean.

Kathryn: A little of both.

Elamin: A little bit.

Elamin: I mean, Pedro Pascal has clearly embraced it. Matt, what the hell is going on here?

Matt: So you know when you get your cat, and you put some catnip on the ground? It starts rolling around and getting all crazy? That's our story now with Pedro Pascal. He's the catnip. And it's because he's, like, sensitive, but he's tough, so he's kind of like this good guy that's about to snap at any moment…You see him in The Last of Us and he's conflicted. He's very tough, he can pull the gun and take care of business, but he's also taking care of a kid. And all this talk about "daddy," this is no coincidence. He's literally a daddy by proxy in most of these roles.  

Elamin: He's baby Yoda's daddy, that's right.

Matt: He's taking care of the young lady on The Last of Us. He's got this great combination of comfort, mystery, toughness. And the The Last of Us episode where he has a panic attack recently? So you see him as tough all the time, taking care of zombies all day, and then he's panicking behind [it all]. So I think people find that endearing, but also he's adorable. He's endlessly watchable.

Elamin: Richard, there's something so compelling to me about the kind of character that Pedro Pascal plays in The Last of Us because this is a post-apocalyptic kind of show. It is not the kind of genre that normally creates a heartthrob. But then you have this not-particularly-typical action hero. What do you think it is that makes Pedro so compelling in the show?

Richard: Well, I think our dear friend here, our hunky uncle that everybody wants, is human grief on two legs, and you just can't take your eyes off of him. I think many of us are discovering Pascal's original role; the first time I saw him was on Netflix last year in Narcos, which was brutal, but even then I could not take my eyes off of him. So I think that with The Mandalorian and The Last of Us, I think that Pedro has been very lucky to be in something so epic.

Party Down: The reboot no one asked for…but we're glad to have

Elamin: This past week, we saw a long-awaited revival of Party Down. That's a comedy series that centers around a catering company hired to just cater to a bunch of events around Hollywood. Kathryn, it's been 13 years off the air and Party Down has returned. Is Party Down 2.0 worth the wait?

Kathryn: Absolutely, yes. Most revivals suck, and I'll just say that. Most TV revivals and movie revivals are fighting against really strong headwinds of how unpleasant and sad it is to have to try to recreate this thing that existed in a certain time period and is now gone. Now, it is inherently often kind of depressing that no one's moved on from their lives since that last point. But the thing about Party Down is it was always sad and it was always depressing that these people were stuck as caterers instead of doing the things that they actually wanted to do. And so, what the revival can do is take advantage of that and actually be thematically stronger for the fact that a lot of these people are still in the same place as they were when the show originally aired. I could not believe how much I loved these new episodes. As is always the case, some are stronger than others, but man, it's good.

Elamin: I have to say, Matt, when I first saw that Party Down was being revived, I think I had the same reaction that Magnum P.I. was being rebooted — I was like, "who needs this? I don't know who this is for." But the show has this interesting history because it was on in 2009, 2010, and then it went off the air. But it truly developed this weird cult following. What drew you to the show?

Matt: Well, it wasn't available in Canada. That's one of the things, we did get it later on the streamers. But the show was so interesting to me because certain industries attract creatives — waiters, bartenders, stuff like that. No one's really picking that as a career; some people do and there's nothing wrong with that, but you usually have something else on the go. And so, it's kind of like, you want to be the first one to break free of the prison that it is. And the interesting thing about Adam Scott's character in this is that, a lot of people think you're either a nobody or you're Matt Damon, but there's a lot of layers to celebrity. So, you could be the guy who did the Taco Bell Dog's voice, you know what I mean? And that's pretty good. Bruce McCall from Kids in the Hall used to say "small-c celebrities." And I think there's more of those than there is huge celebrities. So to show him as this guy who is known for literally a catchphrase, and he's embarrassed by it — but at the end of the day, if you're popular for a catchphrase, be happy about that if you get recognized. That's a level of celebrity that isn't often discussed, and it's really interesting to me.

Elamin: Richard, you're not up on Party Down, but reboots are a dime a dozen these days. There's a new Night Court, for God's sake. You're a storyteller by trade. As someone who's trying to engage audiences with a bunch of new ideas, how do you feel about all these reboots taking up the space?

Richard: Let me just back up by saying I think that pop culture became one of the few things that we could trust and believe in, and it always delivered during the pandemic — you know what I mean? Like, you could always count on Animal Crossing ... But I think that we're in the golden age of television again, and I think that you can watch these reboots and if that speaks to your heart, fantastic. Everyone deserves an island. But when I think about Yellowstone and Ted Lasso, Jeff Lemire's Essex County, Succession, we have so much to look forward to — and it will always come back to the writing and the casting.

WATCH | Official trailer for Party Down on STARZ:

Elamin: Catherine, are you bothered by all these reboots taking up all this space? Because sometimes it feels like maybe we're too concerned about whether Hollywood is running out of ideas. But in the case of Party Down, I think there is something to say when you go back and mine this material that does exist, is familiar, but also you can add more to this material.

Kathryn: Look, the existence of Party Down suggests that it is possible to do this well. But the existence of Party Down also suggests that it almost never happens, and that when it does happen, it feels like a special gift that you are surprised by. This is the exception that proves the rule. The other thing is, I talk to a lot of people who make television. I talk to a lot of people who are trying to develop shows. There is no dearth of new ideas. There is a dearth of money for new ideas, and we are in a moment where as Hollywood has been contracting, particularly over the last year, we are coming down from the peak of peak TV and there is a lot less willingness to risk money on new IP. What I'm seeing over and over are conservative plays, and the conservative safe choice is like, "well, everyone already knows what Night Court is so we're doing it again."

Matt: Well, that's why Party Down is so exciting is that, it doesn't have the burden of expectations behind it. No one was asking for this, and it came and surprised us and we're like, "wow, we really missed it, it's great!"

Elamin: I was just saying, the words "no one is asking for this" were also my reaction to the Super Mario movie. But you know what? Here we are, and that is fine.

Recco's for the road

Elamin: Before I let you guys go, I love a recommendation moment. I'd like each of you to recommend one thing that would make my life better this weekend. 

Kathryn: Having just spent a lot of time talking about how much I hate most revivals, I now have to completely undercut that opinion and tell you that I felt that way very much about the first season of Perry Mason on HBO. I thought it was unnecessary and could not figure out what to do with itself. And then I watched season two and I was like, "yeah, Perry Mason! He's in L.A. It's a noir. He eats sandwiches!" I don't think I watch the show correctly. I think I'm supposed to take it very seriously, and instead I'm like, "he's cooking a pot of beans, and now he's eating the beans, and then he's going to argue."

Matt: Beans and sandwiches? Love it.

Kathryn: Look, Matthew Rhys? One of our world's foremost eaters. But I love that show, and I keep needing to watch new screeners, and instead I'm like, "maybe I'll watch Perry Mason again?"

Elamin: I'm sold. That's enough for me to start Perry Mason. Let's go. Matt, what about you? 

Matt: Pulling the old Trojan horse here: you said one song, I'm doing one record label. There's a label from Buffalo, New York, called Griselda Records. The biggest movement in hip hop since Wu-Tang Clan has come down. If you're a fan of anything to do with hip hop and they're not on your radar, first of all, give your head a shake. Second of all, go down the rabbit hole. There's endless artists, endless releases, and everything they do is amazing. It's a real kind of American-dream story of kids that came from nothing to absolutely take over the game.

Elamin: Love that. Richard, last word to you, my man. What is your recommendation?  

Richard: I think everyone should be watching Togetherness on Crave. I think the greatest album I've heard in forever is You and I Will Never Die by KANGA. And I think for comics, everyone should be reading Something is Killing the Children.

Elamin: I love that Richard is like, "I will recommend a thing for you in each discipline."

Richard: Oh, I can keep going.

Elamin: Oh my gosh, Richard, Katherine, Matt, thank you so much again for being here. I so appreciate it.

Kathryn: Thanks so much.

Matt: Thank you!

Richard: Mahsi Cho!

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.