You know a good time is ready to be had when Pedro Pascal goes viral. Or well, more viral, since he’s pretty much always living rent-free in the Internet’s collective mind at the very least ever since he sauntered onto the screen as Prince Oberyn Martell—you know, back in 2014 when Game of Thrones was still good.
This time, pictures of Pascal are bouncing off every corner of every social media because his look at the 30th SAG Awards was just that good. And because of his amazing acceptance speech, of course, but let’s all be honest and admit that fit really was something.
Let’s put together the facts first. Pascal was nominated at the 30th SAG Awards—held in Los Angeles on February 24, 2024—for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Joel in HBO’s post-apocalyptic drama The Last of Us. He arrived on the red carpet with a scandalously unbuttoned white shirt, a full head of curls, and shoulders as wide as a refrigerator.
Of course, the Internet—and I include myself as an active part of it here—was predictably sent into a frenzy the second the first image of Pascal on the red carpet surfaced on the social media platform that used to be Twitter.
While many trending photos of very handsome celebrities have made the rounds over the years, I love that the reactions to these particular photos of this particular handsome actor have mostly taken the form of people immediately fan-casting him into a whole bunch of different roles. I mean, Fran Drescher said it herself that he looks like a swashbuckler.
Here’s a collection of some of the best ideas circulating online.
First and foremost is the image that also popped into my head the second those photos burned themselves onto my eyelids and that is that this man needs to be cast immediately as Don Diego de la Vega and put on Zorro’s mask and hat and cape.
Then, maybe because the shirt Pascal wore during the event was so similar to our collective beloved poet’s shirt of period drama fame, there are calls to make him the next Mr Darcy.
Truth be told, why stop at Mr Darcy? He would be an excellent Colonel Brandon. Or a Captain Wentworth.
And then, you have to admit that the combo of white shirt and dark pants screams Prince Eric.
Despite the different takes, we can already draw one very easy conclusion and say that the people want more Pascal in everything.
(featured image: Monica Schipper/FilmMagic)
