Massive Talent: Why Pedro Pascal Was Perfect Casting

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is now playing in theatres, and fans of Nicolas Cage are excited to see the iconic, Academy Award-winning actor play himself. The movie also stars Pedro Pascal as Javi, a billionaire Nic Cage fan who hires the actor to attend his birthday party. Recently, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with writer/director Tom Gormican and co-writer Kevin Etten who talked about writing the role for Cage and why Pascal was the perfect choice for Javi. 

"You know, it was interesting because we had met with Pedro and we haven't really seen him do this type of character before," Gormican explained. "And when we met with him he was such a massive Nicolas Cage fan, that he was like, 'I just wanted to meet you guys and talk about the script 'cause I love Nic.' And we started to see this character as like Pedro the actor. And we thought we can't do this movie without him. So bringing him in and using like bits of who he actually is, to actually enhance the Javi character in the film was like a big part of it."

"I have to also give my wife Elizabeth credit because as we were trying to figure out who we were gonna cast she was just, she's a huge, huge Pedro Pascal fan," Etten added. "And so it was literally, she was like so confused as to why there was even a discussion. She was like, 'It's weird. Pedro's clearly the best guy for this. Are you guys out of your minds?' Like, I give her credit."

"And then we were on set, like having the two of them the relationship between the two of them Nic's sort of channeling is Bronson and this very stoic, like gruff character and Pedro's like sweet sort of psycho fan behavior, like made us, like it turned into something pretty special," Gormican added.

"I mean, I remember saying to Tom, like, you know this will be, I'll consider this a win if we like get to basically go have lunch with Nic Cage and it could fall apart after that," Etten replied when asked if Pascal's character was basically him. "But if we got there that would've been a big enough of a win." 

Recently, Pascal had a chat with BroBible, and explained why working with Cage helped reawaken his love for acting. 

"There was almost something about, I don't know, reawakening the things that you care about and why you got into it in the first place, because he's still challenging himself, he's super prepared, he's coming up with new ideas, and, honestly, it was an incredible challenge to rise to but it was mostly a really beautiful inspiration and a reminder of why I had this fantasy to start with and then study and then job. It was because of how he feels and how he treats acting," Pascal explained. 

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is now playing in theatres. Check out our Month of Cage streaming guide.