Buffy the Vampire Slayer Gave Sci-Fi Icon His Big Acting Break
Right now, Pedro Pascal is having more than a moment…his career headlining hit shows like The Mandalorian and The Last of Us has reached critical mass, and he’ll soon be joining the MCU as Mr. Fantastic. Some people might have forgotten where this Hollywood megastar got his start, but not fans of a certain Slayer. You see, Buffy The Vampire Slayer gave Pedro Pascal arguably his biggest early role, one that ultimately saved the actor’s career.
A Young Pedro Pascal
If you’re already digging out your Buffy DVDs to get a glimpse of baby Pedro Pascal, his one and only appearance in the show is in the Season 4 premiere episode “The Freshman.” This episode represented a big shift for the show and its title character: Buffy and the gang had graduated from (and blown up) their high school and were now off to college, though both vampy Angel and snarky Cordelia had left this show to headline their own spinoff.
The episode mostly serves as an introduction to Buffy’s new status quo, but a plot involving her shutting down a frat house turned vampire den is a stark reminder that not everything is different.
The Star’s Fourth Role
That’s the Buffy Season 4 opener in a nutshell, so where does Pedro Pascal come in? The actor (sans mustache and credited as Pedro Balmaceda) plays Eddie, a fellow frightened freshman who has a meet-cute with Buffy before getting attacked by vampires. As you might expect, he returns as a creature of the night, and he’s gone from being a meek kid toting a literary security blanket to someone out for an all-he-can-eat blood buffet.
A role in Buffy was a big deal for Pedro Pascal…this was only his fourth role outside of a couple of shorts, and it was definitely the highest-profile job he had yet been offered. He looked back on his casting with a sense of humor, noting that showrunner Joss Whedon pretended to introduce “a new character for season four” before revealing the shocking truth. “No, just kidding—he’s dead.”
Bonded With Sarah Michelle Gellar
A role in Buffy was a big deal for Pedro Pascal…this was only his fourth role outside of a couple of shorts, and it was definitely the highest-profile job he had yet been offered. He looked back on his casting with a sense of humor, noting that showrunner Joss Whedon pretended to introduce “a new character for season four” before revealing the shocking truth. “No, just kidding—he’s dead.”
For fans of both actors, the cutest thing about this Buffy story is that Pedro Pascal got a chance to bond with Sarah Michelle Gellar. He later revealed that they were shooting at night on the UCLA campus because the college sets hadn’t yet been built, and she went out of her way to bring him some ice cream from her trailer. She also taught him “how to use a sandbag to hit my mark” for a fight scene, and considering how much onscreen combat the actor has seen since then, this advice has long since proven its value.
Seven Dollars to His Name
Speaking of value, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show that Pedro Pascal credits for saving his Hollywood career: in a blunt interview earlier this year, he said that his Hollywood “entry-level lasted about 15 years,” and not making much money meant not being able to get medical care or even pay his rent.
He vividly remembers having only seven dollars in his bank account when a residual for this Buffy episode “showed up and saved the day.” According to him, his small role in this television episode from decades ago is “the reason I was able to stay in [Hollywood] and not give up.”
From Vampire Victim To Sci-Fi Superstar
That means that if Buffy hadn’t featured Pedro Pascal early on, we might never have seen his talents in shows like The Mandalorian or Game of Thrones. Certainly, he wouldn’t be gearing up to wow all of us in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. In the ultimate irony, Pascal getting killed by vampires in Buffy did the same thing to his career as it did to his character: brought it back to life.
