Pedro Pascal Says Learning the Cello Terrified Him More Than Fighting The Mountain, and His Nicolas Cage Line Is Comedy Gold

Pedro Pascal has survived sword fights, zombie apocalypses and the crushing skull squeeze of The Mountain on Game of Thrones. But according to the actor himself, none of that compares to the one thing that genuinely terrified him: a cello.

The 51 year old star walked the red carpet at the BFI London Film Festival on Tuesday night for the premiere of his new drama Behemoth!, and when reporters asked about the role, he did not hold back. Learning to play the cello convincingly, he said, was the most challenging task of his entire career. Harder than any battle scene. Harder than anything he has ever done physically or emotionally.

And then he delivered the quote of the night.

The Quote Everyone Is Repeating

Standing outside the Royal Festival Hall, Pascal told Reuters that the experience left him more fearful than any previous project. He has been nervous before, he admitted, but this was something else entirely.

Then came the punchline. When asked to describe the challenge, the Eddington star joked: “I would choose fighting The Mountain in Game of Thrones over learning how to play the cello convincingly. I would rather be, I don’t know, tossed off of a cliff with Nicolas Cage than have to learn how to play the cello.”

It is vintage Pascal: self-deprecating, funny, and completely unguarded. It is also telling. This is a man who has been set on fire, thrown from horses and beaten to a pulp on camera for the last decade. And the instrument that scared him is roughly four feet tall and made of wood.

“I’d never been so afraid,” he said. “I’ve been nervous about other jobs and the physical…emotional demands, but it was nothing like this.”

What Behemoth! Is Actually About

The film, written and directed by Tony Gilroy (the man behind Michael Clayton and Andor), follows Alex Serian, a gifted cellist who returns home to Los Angeles after nearly two decades of touring. Music has been the constant, all consuming river of his life, and on this return it carries him on an adventure that will change him forever.

But Behemoth! is not really a story about a cellist so much as it is a love letter to an invisible world: the film scoring stage. Gilroy told the festival audience that before filming, even seasoned members of his own crew had never stepped inside the scoring stages where much of the work takes place. The movie pulls back the curtain on the session musicians whose playing quietly shapes the soundtracks of major productions.

Actor Eva Victor, who stars alongside Pascal, recalled that musicians involved in the production kept telling the cast and crew the same thing: “Finally, a movie about us.”

“I think the curtain will be lifted on something that’s really a huge part of film that we don’t talk about or… we kind of take for granted often,” Victor added.

Why the Cello Broke Him (in the Best Way)

Pascal has said the cello is his favourite instrument, which makes his confession even more interesting. This was not a chore he resented. It was something he loved, and it still humbled him completely.

At the world premiere at the New York Film Festival earlier this month, he explained that the instrument took over his life. “The cello was the main character of my life for several weeks leading up to shooting,” he said. “I took it with me everywhere I went.” He described the crash course as “the hardest thing that I’ve ever done creatively for a part”, calling the whole experience “hell… and heaven.”

Yet for all the struggle, the fear gave way to something genuine. “Once I held the cello, I felt good,” he told Reuters in London. That is the line that stays with you: the fear never fully left, but the instrument itself became a comfort.

A Co-Star Who Saw the Kindness

Seventeen year old Alexa Swinton, known from Thunderbolts*, worked alongside Pascal on the film and had nothing but praise for him. She said watching him showed her that success and kindness can go hand in hand, praising the actor’s grace, poise and politeness on set.

It is a small detail, but it fits the Pascal public persona perfectly: the internet’s favourite co-star, beloved by colleagues, nervous about a cello. Audiences can smell authenticity, and this is why his fans stay loyal.

The Early Reviews Are Split (of Course They Are)

Behemoth! already screened for critics at the London Film Festival, and the early verdicts are deliciously mixed. Radio Times found the film meandering but noted it is “pleasing to see him back in an introspective character-driven drama after blockbusters like The Fantastic Four and The Mandalorian and Grogu”, calling it possibly his sexiest role to date.

Other reviewers praised Pascal’s magnetic performance as a tormented cellist carrying unaddressed trauma, while admitting the non-linear structure sometimes works against the film. The score itself, built by a collective of composers including names like Michael Giacchino and James Newton Howard, earned near universal love. The music, critics agree, is as much a star as Pascal himself.

Which, honestly, is exactly the point Gilroy was making.

The Pascal Renaissance Rolls On

Take a step back and look at the run Pascal is on. The Mandalorian made him a household name. Game of Thrones made him unforgettable. The Last of Us made him an Emmy contender. Eddington showed his dramatic range. The Fantastic Four and The Mandalorian and Grogu cemented him as a box office anchor. Now, at 51, he is voluntarily walking into a quiet drama about session musicians and admitting on the record that it scared him more than any of it.

That is the move of an actor who does not need to prove anything and wants to prove everything anyway. It is the same fearlessness that made James McAvoy’s recent press tour so compelling, the same hunger for a real challenge that keeps actors like Tom Hiddleston trading superhero roles for prestige dramas.

Pascal replaced Oscar Isaac in the role after casting shakeups, with Will Arnett also stepping in for David Harbour. He attended the London premiere with his sister Lux Pascal by his side, and with co-stars Eva Victor, Will Arnett, Hank Azaria, Olivia Wilde and Matthew Lillard all part of the ensemble.

The film arrives in theaters on December 4, which puts it squarely in awards season territory. Whether the Academy notices or not, Pascal has already won the more interesting battle: he faced the cello, survived it, and came out the other side with a great story and an even better quote.

After all, how many actors can say their scariest co-star was four strings and a bow?

Further reading: Pedro Pascal’s other on-set confession this month was not his first this awards season: revisit James McAvoy’s jaw dropping press tour confessions and the sinkhole threatening Nicolas Cage’s $10.5 million Malibu home, plus Tom Hiddleston’s Everest epic Tenzing on Apple TV.

Sources: Thomson Reuters via WDSM; Radio Times.