Why Pedro Pascal’s Honesty Is Rare in Hollywood Today

If you’ve watched Hollywood in the age of #cancel culture, you know that “speaking your mind” has become a serious gamble. Too many filters, pre-approved talking points, and spin doctors between stars and their audiences. But every once in a while, you meet someone who just doesn’t give a damn. Someone who speaks unguardedly and off the cuff—and even makes the 24-hour news cycle seem short.

Pedro Pascal is that someone. And in an interview for his latest film, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, it’s clear that the actor is going to stay that way.

One Moment of Candor

Pascal’s earned the right to be blunt. The actor has international fame and an increasingly massive platform—his Instagram account alone has more than 11 million followers—but in an interview for the new film, he shows that he isn’t afraid to use his voice.

He opens up while speaking with Sky News during a recent press trip in London. The four-minute-and-two-second interview is intended as a standard soundbite for entertainment outlets, but Pascal uses the opportunity to speak earnestly and candidly. There’s an air of not taking himself too seriously, a refreshing contrast to so many interviews delivered with marketing-speak serenity.

“Yeah, it is,” he replies when asked if he is protective of his views. “I think it’s very easy to get scared, no matter what you sort of talk about. There are so many different ways that things can get kind of fractured and have a life of itself.”

It’s a relatable observation, if a bleak one. Celebrity interviews in 2023 often feel like TikTok edits, where a two-second clip can be warped, mistranslated, and made to look like you’ve never said it at all. Pascal isn’t wrong to be concerned, and most celebrities are learning to be risk-averse in the moment. But as his Sky News interview makes clear, Pascal is not like most celebrities.

“It is scary for sure,” Pascal continues. “And it’s terrifying, no matter what you say, you know. It’s particularly, I suppose, different if it’s something that you say that is emotionally charged, but 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.”

Never Shut Up

The final line of the Sky News interview is telling. Not only is it an interesting creative choice to end with the blunt pronouncement, but it’s also kind of hard to find another celebrity who says it with quite so much gusto and carelessness.

If the interview is Pascal’s headline, then the rest of the quote is the subtext, and it reads like a mission statement for the actor. The more you speak, the more likely you are to be misheard. Pascal knows the score, and his career has earned him his privileges, which makes the defiance of that final line all the more enticing.

But speaking is one thing, and Pascal is well aware of both the stakes and the landscape, so he also talks about action. Beyond his Sky News interview, Pascal has frequently shown off his commitment to both self-expression and social justice, with well-timed gestures and pointed eye rolls toward the injustices facing the world at any given moment.

Pascal made headlines with a public outing in a “Protect The Dolls” T-shirt, which read “Ban” in solidarity with the recent ban on drag shows. The actor also showed his support for Gaza in response to blockades by sharing an Instagram Story of a sign outside a supermarket. It’s a simple gesture, but a powerful reminder to his audience that awareness and responsibility are more than social posts.

There is awareness and balance in his casting as the Fantastic Four’s Dr. Reed Richards, though, too. Pascal is a recent addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), with his breakout role coming in 2022’s The Last of Us. In the first season of the acclaimed show, Pascal starred as David, a conflicted supersoldier able to bend steel with his bare hands.

The role is incredible, but Pascal is poised to bring a different kind of internal conflict to his next superhero gig. In The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the actor takes on the role of Dr. Reed Richards, a character with the power to save the world while also navigating a more personal pressure: the new responsibilities of impending fatherhood alongside his wife, Sue Storm (Kirby).

It’s a balance that Pascal, who has a somewhat irregular and late-blooming path to fame, is no stranger to: from superstardom while remaining true to himself. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is helmed by WandaVision’s Matt Shakman, and Pascal’s castmates include Vanessa Kirby (Girls), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Fosse/Verdon), and Joseph Quinn (It’s a Sin), giving both weight and heart to the MCU spinoff, which is part of the larger MCU but takes place in its isolated continuity.

Pascal is an ideal choice for the role. He’s sensitive and just strapping into the role of a major Marvel superhero, a rarity in a franchise where stars are sometimes greenlit by their “fitsuit cred.” Pascal has the intellectual humility and grounded ethos to play Reed Richards, a scientist with the heart of a poet and the weary pragmatism of someone who has always had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

In truth, Pascal may even be too good for the role, particularly if you look past Reed Richards’s superpowers and inward toward his humanity. As seen in his interview for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Pascal plays both his fame and his responsibilities in the MCU with real awareness: to the eyes and ears of those around him, but even to the unseen context.

Pascal knows that when he speaks, someone will take it too far. He knows the possible consequences of taking a stand in an age of hyper-sensitivity and representation, but he takes the risks anyway. The good news? Pascal doesn’t know when to stop.