The Mandalorian's Pedro Pascal should not be entrusted with even your tiniest franchise secrets
“This is a pretty amazing time to be you,” is how Jimmy Fallon started his interview with Pedro Pascal on Thursday’s Tonight Show. That might sound like some typical Fallon-esque smoke-blowing, but, man, Pedro Pascal might be the only person really coming out of this godforsaken year of 2020 better than when he started. Already a standout actor in everything from Game Of Thrones (screw you, The Mountain) to Narcos, Pascal is now top-billing in both the Star Wars and DC Comics onscreen universes. “As you say it, it makes me sweat,” joked the effortlessly cool Pascal, appearing virtually from wherever deservedly ascendant big stars hang out these days.
But, seriously, Pedro’s doing fine, with the season finale of the wildly successful Baby Yoda delivery device The Madalorian dropping this very day, and the sequel to the only decent DCU movie, Wonder Woman 1984, hitting (a few) big screens and (a whole lot more) HBO Max littler screens on Christmas Day. In that one, Pascal is playing—someone he refuses to name to Fallon. (It’s billionaire industrialist Maxwell Lord, who fans of the Giffen-DeMatteis Justice League remember quite fondly, Supergirl fans might remember was played by another guy, and fans of a certain underdog DC hero remember with burning hatred.) Still, as Pascal revealed with only the coolest tinge of embarrassment, he wasn’t always so tight-lipped about his top-secret role, or the plot details of the tentpole movie from a very secretive mega-corporation.
And, sure, you might want to blame the cocktails at the getting-to-know-you London mixer co-star Wonder Woman co-star Kristen Wiig threw for breaching Pascal’s NDA. But, as Pascal confessed, he’d already happily talked the ear off of his rideshare driver on his way there. To be fair to The Mandalorian star (and emergency stand-in Walton Goggins), Lord’s comics-convoluted history is extensive enough to require some explanation. (It’s unknown if Wonder Woman 1984 will include Max’s cyborg-bodied Lord Havok phase, but, yeah, probably not.) To be less fair to himself, Pascal conceded that he only realized how hard he’d screwed up the whole company secrets thing once a pair of Wiig’s very best friends informed him that Wiig herself hadn’t told her most cherished pals a single, blessed thing. Whoops.
Still, Pascal—who jumped at the chance to play an entire, high-profile season of television hiding his moneymaker in a metal bucket—is unlikely to face many repercussions. (Disney already knows he’s not big with the secret-keeping.) Plus, he did tell Fallon that he managed to keep his big yapper shut about that whole Baby Yoda thing to an extent that even he was impressed. Of course, that’s Disney we’re talking about and—while there is no way to prove this—the heads of any all all Disney franchise leakers are stored in hyper-cold cryogenic punishment-freeze in Cinderella’s Castle. But we kid the overlords of some 75 percent of our childhoods. Pascal did give some hints about the tight, Death Star-style ship over at Disney security HQ, telling Fallon that his attempt to heist the tiniest single piece of under-wraps Mandalorian Lego merch found him at the receiving end of a next-day phone call. Jabba’s got nothing on Disney.