Pedro Pascal took a sleeping pill: "The Last of Us" star had memory lapses after casting

With “The Last of Us” actor Pedro Pascal once again gives a face to a successful series. The 47-year-old can think back to the casting with a smile – after all, he had already forgotten it the next morning.

The new series “The Last of Us” is currently causing a stir on the US streaming service HBO Max. Ex-‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘The Mandalorian’ star Pedro Pascal stars in the gritty video game adaptation. He embodies the survivor Joel – but Pascal had meanwhile lost his casting on the show. The actor now explained this to late-night talker Jimmy Fallon on his “Tonight Show”.

Pascal reports on the show that he was in London during the casting process for “The Last of Us”, while producer Craig Mazin (“Chernobyl”) sent him the script for the pilot episode from Los Angeles. The production then asked Pascal to “stay up a little later to talk to Neil Druckmann,” creator of the video game the HBO series is based on.

At this point, according to Pascal, it was already very late in the evening in London due to the time difference. While waiting, he took a sleeping pill because he was excited and had to get up the following morning. Then the long-awaited call came and Pascal was informed that he had received his dream role.

When he woke up the next morning, however, he could not remember his casting because of the sleeping pill he had taken. “I really want this job and I’ll be waiting by the phone all day,” Pascal said at the time. However, when he looked at his phone, he saw congratulatory messages and remembered: “Oh yes, I have the job.”

Launching on January 15, 2023, The Last of Us has made a hugely successful debut on HBO Max. Not only are the number of viewers in HBO’s linear program and the viewing values ????at HBO Max impressive, but “The Last of Us” (as of February 3) also has an excellent value of 96 percent positive reviews on the review collection site Rotten Tomatoes. Consequently, HBO Max has already extended its successful production for a second season. In Germany you can watch the series on the pay TV channel Sky.