As anyone who’s ever watched Game of Thrones can tell you, there is only one person who was ever born to play the Red Viper, aka Oberyn Martell. We can imagine none other than Pedro Pascal in the role and, even now, it’s jarring hearing the actor speak in his normal voice, without that gloriously sexy Oberyn accent (the real-life Pascal sounds like the proverbial Valley Boy).
***Game of Thrones Spoilers ahead***
He may have moved on to Netflix’s Narcos, but we’ll never forget his Thrones‘ life … and death:
And the story of how Pascal got the part is pretty darned amazing. Firstly, he basically stole the part out from under someone. To be fair, it sounds like the other person wouldn’t have been in the right age range anyway, so no harm done. And, secondly, he has an excellent friend who had a hand in getting Pedro’s tape to GoT‘ showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss via Benioff’s wife, Amanda Peet. Just listen!
We have to join Pascal in thanking Sarah Paulson so very much, because we simply can’t imagine anyone else ever playing Oberyn in such a spectacular fashion.
And what of that poor guy who lost the role of a lifetime?
