Pedro Pascal Talks The Last of Us and Tries to Dodge Mandalorian Spoilers The Tonight Show

They love you. We love you. Welcome back. Thanks for coming on the show, bud. Thank you for having me back. I missed you. Yeah, I know. You did miss me. Hey, I want to talk to you, because, obviously, you got the biggest show. I want to get into everything, all the shows, everything. Last of Us, it's a blockbuster. Congrats. But you are hosting Saturday Night Live. Whoo! With Coldplay! It's a big show. That's a big ticket right there. That's a hot ticket. Yeah, yeah. Are you excited? Are you nervous? What are you feeling? Can I help in any way? Why are you asking? Are you nervous for me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm really nervous for you. No way. I'm so – I think you should have hosted when I – Ages ago? After my Law & Order episode? Yes, that's exactly – that's exactly when I told – I said, Lord, this guy's got something, man. Are you excited? I'm super excited. I think it's the top of everybody's bucket list. I am scared. You are? There's, like, a wall of sheer terror, I think, that you start with, and then it's such a well-oiled machine. Everybody is so amazing and talented, and they take these, you know, blocks of, you know, white-hot terror apart for you with big cue cards. Yeah. What is today? Oh, yeah, so have you practiced blocking right now? Yeah, we just started some blocking. Isn't it the most fun? I mean, it is a great crew. We have the best crew here, too. Yes, yes. But after us, Saturday Night Live. Second to this show? Second to this tonight show, yeah, yeah, yeah. SNL. But SNL, it's just amazing. And it's the last live show on TV. It's the – wait, The Last of Us. I see a connection already. Is it too late to write that in? I hear clicking. Yeah. If things weren't big enough for you and your life and your career, The Last of Us, it is the – it's the biggest thing in the world. But you also have The Mandalorian that premieres season three next month. You are The Mandalorian. I know there's also so many secrets, and I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. I'll tell you everything. No, I know. I don't want that. But can you tell fans anything about season three? I will say there will be more Mandalorians. All right. That's good. I'll take that. A lot of them. Big, epic battle. Plural. Maybe. Ooh. I love that. And Baby Yoda is not in this season. No, I'm just kidding. They couldn't figure his contract out for season three. They're still in negotiations. Yeah. He's got a good agent. How is Grogu? His head got bigger than his ears. Yeah. How is Grogu? What's he going to be doing this season? He's been very good. He's still learning. Aw. Teaching. Yeah. He is. Protected. Protecting. Yeah. I think if I say any more... Yeah. Don't say it. ...I'll be replaced. Like, not just as the Mandalorian, but as a human being in life. That's how powerful Disney is. Exactly. And their technology is so sophisticated, they'll just replace a different Pascal. Exactly. March 1st on Disney+, by the way. That's when it premieres. Congrats on that. But let's talk about this. But now you've done that, and it was the biggest thing, and you go, oh, my gosh. And then there was... Let's just go back. Game of Thrones. Home run. Narcos. Home run. Mandalorian. Home run. And then The Last of Us. And that's the end. No! It's just the beginning. I'll do SNL, and then everyone... You're retired, buddy. It's just the beginning. You forgot Law & Order SVU. Yeah, I did forget that. I left it out. But you're so talented. But this is some kind of genius move that you've been doing. I've never seen a career like this. I have nothing to do with it. Yes, you do! I have nothing to do with it. How do you pick shows that are going to be giant hits? The door opens, and you're like... No way. Let me in. You're jumping in. I beg. No, you don't. Like, how does Last of Us come about? Do the creators... That was a really strange circumstance. I was actually in London, and everyone else was in Los Angeles. And 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. I loved Chernobyl, the miniseries that he show-ran for HBO. It was unbelievable. Anyway, I read the first script, and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to meet him. Yeah. And we talked. We fell in love. And he... 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. Genius. Yeah. Brilliant guy. And he'd like to talk to you as well. Stay up for that soon. We all fall in love again. And then 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 hope's up. Yeah, so you take a sleeping pill, so you don't have to think about anything. Exactly. But I get a call, and I get told that I got the job after I took the Ambien. Oh, no. And so I was excited, I guess, but I didn't remember. So you're like, was that a dream? I woke up in the morning, and the first thing that occurred to me was like, oh, man, I really want that job. I'm in London. They're in L.A. I'm going to wait by the phone all day long. This hasn't happened in a while, you know. I'm going to be longing. I'm going to think about it all day long. You had already got the call that you got the job? Yeah, I was like, oh, congratulations. So happy for you, when I looked at my phone, and I was like, oh, yeah, I got the job. It is based on the awesome, awesome, awesome video game, The Last of Us. For those who don't know the game or don't know the show, how do we set it up, and how do we set up who you play? I play Joel Miller. He has a bad day. Everybody, the planet, has a really bad day, and fungus, cordyceps, finds a way to cross over into human DNA and ends the planet in 24 hours. Very light, happy stuff. Yeah, light, totally light, happy stuff, yeah. A very traumatic event shapes this man into who he is 20 years later, which is this dystopian world with fascistic governments and very contagious cordyceps that turns you into an infected monster. It's good times. Yeah, it is good times. Every episode, by the way, has grown and almost like, it already was a hit, the first episode. Then it's grown, second episode, third. It's the biggest thing. It's getting bigger and bigger and bigger. They know what they're doing. Yeah, they know what they're doing. You know what you're doing, too, bud. You're fantastic. I want to show everyone a clip. Here's Pedro Pascal in this Sunday's episode of The Last of Us. Take a look at this. When I say go, you crawl to that wall, and you squeeze through, and you don't come out until I say. Okay? They're not going to hit you. Look at me. They're not going to hit you. You stay down, you stay low, you stay quiet. Okay. HBO and HBO Max, and the Tonight Show after the break. Stick around, everybody. Come on.