Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke's Almodóvar-Directed Gay Western to Debut at Cannes

Pedro Pascal, a star of The Last of Us, The Mandalorian, and Game of Thrones, is excited about his soon-to-premiere gay-themed short film directed by Pedro Almodóvar and costarring Ethan Hawke.

Almodóvar’s involvement is what drew Pascal to the film, Strange Way of Life, which depicts two men, Silva (Pascal) and Sheriff Jake (Hawke) reuniting after not seeing each other for 25 years. Spanish actor Manu Rios appears in the movie as well.

Almodóvar “absolutely opened up an entire world of storytelling, color, culture, rebellion, and sexuality that was just absolutely intoxicating, dangerous, hilarious, heartbreaking, and encompassing the whole spectrum, but with such a signature style,” Pascal recently told Insider.

He added, “It could have been anything that he asked me to do, and I would have done it without question.”

The acclaimed director, who is gay, had talked about the film on the Dua Lipa: At Your Service podcast in December. “This is a queer Western in the sense that there are two men, and they love each other, and they behave in that situation in an opposite way,” Almodóvar said. Further, in an interview with IndieWire last year, he described Strange Way of Life as "ilke my answer to Brokeback Mountain."

Pascal told Insider he was also excited to be working with Hawke. “To get to work with Ethan, whose movies I’ve seen since I was a little kid, who I’ve seen onstage off-Broadway, on Broadway, whose books I’ve read, whose plays I’ve seen him direct, and big movie, small movies, horror movies,” he said. “It was really an incredible opportunity to go, learn, and to enjoy the experience of being on the level of people like that. Taking it all in was incredible.”

Strange Way of Life is 30 minutes long and will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Pascal has become famous due to his appearance in HBO’s The Last of Us, as a survivor in a post-apocalyptic world, plus his turns as the title character in The Mandalorian and Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones. He is now lending his voice to ads for the mobile video game Merge Mansion and plans to costar with David Harbour in an HBO limited series, My Dentist's Murder Trial.

“Pedro Pascal is having a moment,” Insider notes.