Pedro Pascal's Guest Role On Buffy The Vampire Slayer Inspired One Of His Most Underrated Films
Before he earned an Emmy nomination playing Joel in "The Last Of Us," partied with Nicolas Cage in "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," and seduced the world in "Game of Thrones," Pedro Pascal guest starred in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." The actor appeared in the first episode of the show's fourth season, playing a fellow freshman named Eddie who meets Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) on their first day at U.C. Sunnydale.
In a different world, Eddie might have been Buffy's first grown-up love interest — rather than stick in the mud Riley (Marc Blucas) — but instead, he was subject to an ironic bait-and-switch plot. After a convincingly charming meet-cute with Buffy, Eddie immediately gets attacked by vampires and turned into a member of their undead army. By episode's end, Eddie's been staked through the heart by the girl he was just getting to know; his first week of freshman year went nothing like he, or Buffy, had planned.
This was the first time Pascal played a vampire, but it wouldn't be the last. In 2015, the actor starred in the horror comedy "Bloodsucking Bastards," playing a suit-and-tie clad boss at a boring corporate job who turns out to be orchestrating a vampiric office takeover. The movie begins in the spirit of "Office Space," with dry humor and low-stakes wackiness born from mundanity, but things soon spin out of control when Pascal's Max takes over as sales manager. From there, things get bloody, with Fran Kranz's everyman Evan forced to endure it all in order to keep his job.
Pascal has played two bloodsucking bastards
Pascal actually connected the two projects in an interview with Vulture in 2015, saying, "A movie like 'Bloodsucking Bastards' can exist because of a show like 'Buffy.' The humor is a lot more broad, but it still is a genre-mixing story, which 'Buffy' really ushered into pop culture." The actor isn't the only one to make this comparison; in a review of the movie at the time, Paste's Andy Crump wrote that the vampire flick "almost feels designed to appeal to the Whedonite crowd." Aside from the casting of "Cabin in the Woods" and "Dollhouse" star Kranz, Crump notes that "its sense of humor blends self-awareness and self-deprecation in equal measure, it's in love with monsters and mythology, and it folds a handful of genres into one messy, stilted blueprint."
"I love mixing horror with comedy," Pascal told Vulture, noting that the movie is also often compared to "Shaun of the Dead." He's not wrong about "Buffy," though; while "Bloodsucking Bastards" includes a meaner edge than the classic vamp coming-of-age show, it follows the much-used "Buffy" formula, in which one character notices that monsters are taking over everyday life while the rest seemingly remain clueless. "It's kind of 'Fright Night' as well, because you have the main character aware of something very suspicious going on, and then my character coming in and taking over this poor guy's world," Pascal notes.
'This is a new character for season four. No, just kidding -- he's dead.'
"Bloodsucking Bastards" is by no means one of Pascal's most popular projects. The movie was released by Scream Factory and only ever got a limited theatrical release. Reviews on it were mixed, but it certainly has some fans, including /Film's own Matt Donato, who complimented director Brian James O'Connell's "command of tone" and called the movie "one of the goofier underrated analogies when it comes to corporate greed."
As for his short time on "Buffy," Pascal looked back on it fondly in 2015, saying that he was finally "really [experiencing] the show in all of its brilliant allegory" now that it's on streaming. "That was one of the first jobs I got after I graduated, being a vampire — albeit briefly," he reminisced. Speaking years before series creator Joss Whedon had been publicly accused of mistreating multiple actors, Pascal called the writing of his character "brilliant," saying, "he set my character Eddie up as, "Oh! This is Buffy's new friend. This is a new character for season four. No, just kidding — he's dead."
Poor Eddie, we hardly knew you. Luckily, though, fans of the briefly introduced and swiftly killed character would get to see Pascal play a vampire again — over a decade later.
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is currently streaming on Hulu. You can watch "Bloodsucking Bastards" on Peacock, The Roku Channel, and Tubi.