Pedro Pascal nabbed the SAG award for Male Actor In a Drama Series and offered a promising update on The Last Of Us season 2.
This weekend brought more awards glory to HBO’s The Last Of Us. At the SAG awards, Pedro Pascal won Male Actor In a Drama Series and no one was more surprised than Pascal himself.
“This is wrong for a number of reasons,” the visibly overwhelmed actor said on stage when accepting his award. “I am a little drunk. I thought I could get drunk.”
Pascal won the award for his portrayal of Joel Miller in the first season of The Last Of Us, which is based on NaughtyDog’s hugely successful video game of the same name.
Season 2 is currently filming in Vancouver and Pascal gave an update on how filming is going.
“Filming is going amazing,” Pascal told Deadline. “It’s sort of awe-inspiring the kind of focus and dedication that everyone has going into Season 2.”
Pascal will reprise his role as Joel alongside Bella Ramsey as Ellie. Kaitlyn Dever was cast as Abby in the upcoming season.
“Stepping into those boots again, it feels strangely brand new,” the actor said. “I’ve never done anything like this before that has such original authorship before I ever got to it.”
Pascal also praised series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann.
“And then to be given the space to author what would I have to give and to be under Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann and alongside Bella Ramsey has been really the whole reason it works for me,” he said. “I guess I’m learning something new every day, and I’ll be thinking about it probably for the rest of my life.”
It wasn’t just Pascal who was showered with glory and given a big statue last weekend. On Sunday, Nick Offerman picked up an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Performance In A New Scripted Series for his performance as Bill in episode 3 of The Last Of Us.
Offerman also picked up an Emmy for his performance in the episode.
“Thank you so much. I’m astonished to be in this category, which is bananas,” Offerman said.
Episode 3 of The Last Of Us, titled ‘Long, Long Time’ tells the story of Bill and Frank, two men who find love while the world around them is succumbing to the Cordyceps fungus. It’s a brilliant episode of telly, one of the best 2023 had to offer us, but it was also the subject of homophobic online trolling.
During his acceptance speech, Offerman strongly condemned the homophobic hate the episode received.
“Thanks to HBO for having the guts to participate in this storytelling tradition that is truly independent. Stories with guts that when homophobic hate comes my way and says, ‘Why did you have to make it a gay story?’ We say, ‘Because you ask questions like that. It’s not a gay story, it’s a love story, you asshole!” Offerman said at the Independent Spirit Awards.
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
The Last Of Us season 2 is expected to premiere on HBO in the US and Sky in the UK in 2025.
