I remember when we were shooting in Croatia and it was so hot, I was in really cool-looking armor but it was really tight and really warm, and after three days of shooting I must have lost all kinds of weight. I would definitely get very, very out of breath. I wouldn’t say so, but there’s possibly a slimming effect because you’re constantly moving.
What sort of changes do you notice in yourself doing that sort of training? Do you wake up one day and look like a gladiator? This was completely unfamiliar territory for me, which was really intimidating. The psychical language of it makes sense to me, but I hadn’t worked with a prop before. I’m comfortable with the hand-to-hand combat that I’ve learned I had to do some boxing training for a pervious role and I sort of took to it. So learning to be a warrior is exactly as difficult as it sounds?
#PEDRO PASCAL GAME OF THRONES HOW TO#
He taught me the basics of how to propeller a spear like a helicopter and that’s why I got this curtain rod-and subsequently broke a lamp and slashed my knees. He worked alongside Jet Li in all of the Shaolin movies and he is one of the greater masters of the art of Wushu. Wushu is an acrobatic martial art from China, and the trainer’s name was Master Hu. It was like a 6-foot-3-inch curtain rod, because what they did was set me up with a Wushu trainer. To be totally accurate, it was a curtain rod from Home Depot. You did some fight training before you arrived, right? I heard something about practicing with a broomstick in a parking lot across from your house? I had this reaction of just kind of reading the sides for the audition and finding out major things that were going to be happening with the season, and being furious that the season was being spoiled for me. When it came around, it didn’t seem like an obtainable gig. I didn’t know the casting directors and I was never like, O h, I should call my agent and get on Game of Thrones. It was never a show I saw myself having the opportunity to be a part of, so I just watched it from that complete objective place. It didn’t let up because I was an enormous fan of the show, and it’s also shot in a very far away location with a mostly European cast. I had my nerd moments about every 37 seconds that I was there. What’s it like to join a show you’re already a fan of? Everything that you feel, you do something about it, which is no way to function in reality. This was an opportunity to experience the fantasy of actually living like there’s not tomorrow as each minute passes.
It’s an exciting but very dangerous life, which is why we typically don’t live that way now. He’s a good man, he’s a good partner, but he’s a dangerous man. He is somebody who does what he wants when he wants and is very uncompromising in terms of his feeling and actions. What can you tell us about the Red Viper? It was amazing that I had this very concentrated experience: Once I arrived, I never made contact with what was familiar to me until it was all over and I came back to the U.S. During my off time, when I wasn’t shooting, we were doing fight training and fight rehearsals and things like that. I was committed to being there the entire time my character was supposed to shoot, so I sort of lived at the hotel in Belfast while the other cast members came in and out from London, Denmark, Holland and Germany. I had different circumstances than anyone else in the cast because the only other actor out of the U.S.
They have all 10 episodes written before the first day of production and shoot from mid-July to November. We wrapped the fourth season in November I was done in October. You’re already back in the States and awaiting the premiere of your first season? I’m in Los Angeles, and it’s a beautiful day, like 75 degrees. Hi, Pedro! Where are you in the world today? The actor, a longtime fan of the series, spoke to DuJour about Wushu training, fighting a strongman and just how Home Depot has contributed to his success. Playing the part of the Red Viper is Pedro Pascal, an alum of The Good Wife and Red Widow. And when Game of Thrones returns for its fourth season on April 6, one of the most compelling newcomers will be Oberyn Martell (also knows as the Red Viper), a warrior from House Martell who’s set on avenging the murder of his sister. There are twists, turns and new characters around every corner in Westeros.