Over the course of its eight-season run, Game of Thrones featured a lot of big-name actors. One of the show's most noteworthy names was Pedro Pascal, who played Oberyn Martell --and apparently, he filmed his audition for the role on an iPhone.
Pascal landed the role after he convinced Sarah Paulson to send her best friend, Amanda Peet (who is married to Thrones co-showrunner David Benioff) his audition tape. Benioff told Variety, "He figures out who the character really is and then he portrays that man, scouring off all falsehood. Plus, he’s really f—ing handsome."
Benioff described Pascal's audition, noting the poor quality. He said, "First of all, it was an iPhone selfie audition, which was unusual. And this wasn’t one of the new-fangled iPhones with the fancy cameras. It looked like shit; it was shot vertical; the whole thing was very amateurish. Except for the performance, which was intense and believable and just right."
Benioff said he and his co-showrunner, D.B. Weiss, were confident very early on that Pascal's Oberyn would be a hit. He explained, "Once we saw the entire season there was no doubt Pedro was going to be a star. I thought he deserved more recognition, frankly. Was he nominated for any awards? He should have been. But Dan and I were thrilled that we gave Pedro a job that helped his ascent because he’s an absolute gem of an actor and a man."
Despite how much Weiss and Benioff loved Pascal and his performance of Oberyn Martell, keeping the prince of Dorne alive was never in the cards. Benioff explained, "Nope. I mean, we love Pedro. And we loved that character. But his death at the hands of the Mountain was one of our favorite brutal killings from George’s books (which feature a few thousand brutal killings, so that’s saying something). Part of the reason people remember Oberyn is because he died so horribly. And if we hadn’t killed him, poor Pedro never could have done Narcos. So, it worked out. Not for Oberyn. But for the rest of us."
Game of Thrones stars Peter Dinklage, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams and Kit Harington. The 4K UHD collection will be released on Nov. 3.
Source: Variety