It’s Official: Pedro Pascal Is Overrated

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 18 seconds ago

The Mandalorian and Grogu is already dividing Star Wars fans. Some see it as a pleasant return to form for the franchise, one that focuses more on spectacle than on trying to delve ever deeper into Skywalker family drama. Others see it as a few episodes of a TV show lazily cobbled together and sold as a movie. However, even those who absolutely loved this new Star Wars film are starting to ask an uncomfortable question: how much did Pedro Pascal actually do in this movie?

He’s the big star of The Mandalorian and, accordingly, the big star of this new film. But like in the show, he avoids taking off his helmet whenever possible, and we only see his face one time in The Mandalorian and Grogu. Aside from that scene, the onscreen work is handled primarily by his two stunt actors, which is presumably why they are listed in the credits, right beneath Pascal. It’s a way of honoring their hard work, but it’s not enough. Bottom line? If Pedro Pascal’s main contribution to this movie was recording lines in a sound booth for two hours, then the stuntmen actually doing 99 percent of the work deserve top billing!

The Man (Sometimes) Behind The Mask

While he had starred in plenty of things before (like a major role in Game of Thrones), it’s fair to say that The Mandalorian made Pedro Pascal into a household name. Most fans assume that he was in the suit most of the time for Season 1 because he wasn’t such an in-demand actor, but that’s not true: in that premiere season, he was only really in the suit for the face reveal, spending much of his time performing in King Lear. He was in the suit most of the time for Season 2 and then in it hardly at all for Season 3 because he was busy shooting The Last of Us.

It’s fair to assume that history repeated itself and Pascal only suited up in The Mandalorian and Grogu for the requisite face reveal. It makes a lot of sense, really: most of the action scenes would be handled by stuntmen anyway. In a role where you almost never see the main character’s face, it’s a no-brainer for Disney to keep Pascal mostly off-set so he can work on movies like Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Sensible or not, though, the blunt fact is that Pedro Pascal put infinitely less work into the new Star Wars film than stunt doubles Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, and they should get top billing.

Voice Work or Special Effects? 

That may sound crazy or even disrespectful to Pedro Pascal, but this is a Star Wars tradition that goes back nearly half a century. While James Earl Jones provided the iconic voice for Darth Vader, it was David Prowse who was in the suit and doing all the physical acting. Jones didn’t appear in the credits at all for the first two Star Wars movies, and he admitted to Newsday that this was at his own request. He felt like Prowse was doing more of the real acting, and his own voice was nothing more than “special effects.”

Now, Jones is being very modest here about his amazing voice work, but he did establish an early franchise tradition: the guy who spends his time on set deserves more credit than the guy who spends almost all of his time recording lines. For both The Mandalorian and The Mandalorian and Grogu, Pascal is the guy spending almost all of his time in the sound booth while his stuntmen are doing all the real work. Nonetheless, it’s the guy who spends the least amount of time bringing this fan-favorite character to life who keeps getting top billing.

Sorry, Pedro Pascal: you’re a great actor, but when it comes to Star Wars, you’re officially overrated. It was nice of you to allow your stuntmen such high placement in The Mandalorian and Grogu credits, and they appear even higher than screen legends like Sigourney Weaver. But the truth is that they should be at the top of the billing for this and all future Mandalorian productions. This is the way, Star Wars fans: let’s start giving more credit to the people performing tiring labor in an overheated suit all day and less credit to the guy just chilling in an air-conditioned sound booth!