Pedro Pascal is presently a widespread name in the industry with countless projects under his collar. He has been a pop culture icon by playing prominent roles in significant IPs like The Mandalorian and The Last of Us. However, his claim to fame was when he played Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones.
Game of Thrones significantly contributed to elevating Pedro Pascal’s stardom. The audience and critics loved his performance as the Dornish Prince. Pascal revealed that to prepare for the role of the Red Viper, he had to train under a Wushu Master who had fought alongside Jet Li in his early career.
Pedro Pascal went through a hard training session for Game of Thrones
Pedro Pascal‘s Oberyn Martell, aka the Red Viper, was one of the coolest Game of Thrones characters. He was a formidable fighter with an incredibly unpredictable nature. Besides that, Oberyn Martell also had a dangerous affinity with poison. According to Pascal, he trained under a master of Wushu and someone who did numerous films with Jet Li.
The fight between Oberyn Martell and Ser Gregor ‘The Mountain’ Clegane is one of the most brutal fight scenes in Game of Thrones. Pedro Pascal’s character gave an incredible fight against The Mountain but unfortunately faced one of the worst deaths in GoT. When Pascal did an AMA session on Reddit, he shared that he had a pre-training session with a renowned master of Wushu for that scene.
I was put into some classes with a master of Wushu, an acrobatic martial art … his name is Master Hu, and he has a studio in Los Angeles where he sort of basically showed me the basics and taught me how to fight with a spear and twist my body around and move in ways I never thought possible. And this was a guy who actually did Shaolin movies with Jet Li very early in Jet Li’s career, and fought alongside him as his sidekick, so he was the real deal.
Pedro Pascal continued:
Then once I got to Europe and started shooting, there were really intensive fight rehearsals with me and the stunt team that was headed by C.C. Smiff, and other actors, and we did a lot of fight choreography and rehearsals. The Oberyn style of fighting is inspired by Wushu.
Jet Li is often regarded as one of the icons of Chinese cinema. With his skills in martial arts, he also became a significant action star in Hollywood. Training under a man who accompanied Jet Li in his early career explains how Pedro Pascal looked so badass during the epic fight scene against Ser Gregor Clegane.
Pedro Pascal is a beastly figure in the upcoming Gladiator II
Despite having a unique badassery and style, Pedro Pascal had a literally head-shattering defeat in Game of Thrones. The fans can never get over the OP character getting one of the most brutal deaths in the HBO show’s run.
However, the Kingsman actor is now again set to take a similar fight against Paul Mescal in the upcoming Gladiator II. In an interview with Empire, Paul Mescal stated that he believes that there is a beastly figure in Pedro Pascal that cannot be sensed from the outside.
I think I’d win in a fight between me and Pedro, but he’s deceptive. Pedro is one of the funniest men that I know, but he could f–k sh-t up. Like, absolutely categorically. There’s a beast in there for sure.
On the other hand, Paul Mescal has also undergone an outstanding transformation to look totally prepared for the Ridley Scott sequel. Pascal even praised him as ‘Brick Wall Paul‘ in an interview with Vanity Fair.
Gladiator II is one of the most hyped projects of this year. As the first part was a huge success, the fans are high on expectations for the sequel. It will be exciting to see if the sequel can recreate the iconic success of the Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix film.
Gladiator II will be released on November 22, 2024. Game of Thrones can be streamed on Max.
