Pedro Pascal Took an Ambien and Forgot He Was Cast in The Last of Us

Pedro Pascal has admitted that he forgot he landed the lead role of Joel on HBO’s The Last of Us because he took an Ambien right before receiving the casting news.

Appearing on The Tonight Show, Pascal revealed that he had a momentary lapse in memory when he was offered The Last of Us job because he had taken an Ambien pill to assist with his sleep after participating in an adrenaline-fuelled, late-night call about the series.

“That was a really strange circumstance. I was actually in London and everyone else was in Los Angeles,” Pascal told host Jimmy Fallon. “I got sent these scripts and I was told that ‘Craig Mazin wants you to read these scripts. And if you like them, he’d like to talk to you.'”

Pascal explained that he was a fan of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl – which Mazin wrote and executive produced – so he read the first script for The Last of Us and found that it instantly fuelled his desire to meet Mazin and discuss his new series further.

“We talked. We fell in love,” he said. “And they were like, ‘will you stay up a little bit later?’ – at this point, it was getting kind of late in London – ‘to talk to Neil Druckmann,’ the creator of the video game.

“I stay up for that zoom,” he continued. “At that point, it’s really late. I’ve got to get up in the morning. I take an Ambien to go to sleep just in case – they’ve got my adrenaline kind of going and my hopes up. But I get a call, and I get told that I got the job after I took the Ambien.”

The actor said he was “excited,” but also “didn’t remember” being offered the role, so he woke up the next morning ready to “wait by the phone all day” until he saw some congratulatory messages. “I looked at my phone, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I got the job!'” Pascal joked.

Pascal was cast as Joel, a man who suffered an incalculable loss at the outset of the fungipocalypse. He’s tasked with escaping his tyrannically-strict Quarantine Zone to smuggle a young girl, Ellie, across the United States to a medical facility run by a rebel militia called the Fireflies.

“A very traumatic event shapes this man into who he is 20 years later, which is, you know, this dystopian world with fascistic governments and very contagious cordyceps that turns you into an infected monster,” Pascal explained before jokingly adding, “It’s good times.”

The Last of Us debuted its first episode on January 15, and it broke records over at HBO, with more than 4.7 million viewers tuning in for the premiere. The video game adaptation marked HBO’s second-best debut in the last decade, only beaten by House of the Dragon.

For those still unsure of how the game-to-TV reimagining is shaping up, check out IGN’s 9/10 reviews for the “stunning adaptation” in episode one and the “edge-of-your-seat tension” in episode two, followed by a 10/10 review for the “masterfully told love story” in episode three.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.