Pedro Pascal on playing cello: “The hardest thing I’ve ever learned to do”

14 July 2026, 13:42

The Chilean-American star will play a professional cellist in his next big role.

Pedro Pascal is heading for some orchestral drama, taking on the role of a cellist in upcoming film, Behemoth!.

The film is Oscar-nominee Tony Gilroy’s first directorial feature since The Bourne Legacy, and follows Alex (Pascal), a gifted musician who returns to LA after decades on the orchestral circuit and is drawn into the world of Hollywood film scoring.

In preparation for the role, Pascal underwent intensive cello training. “Holding a bow correctly alone takes a day’s lesson, and that’s moving fast” he told Vanity Fair, adding that the instrument proved more challenging than any physical training he had previously undertaken, including stunts and sword fights.

He added: “Literally the hardest, hardest, hardest thing I’ve ever had to learn to do. Being in a gladiator arena or hanging from a harness – that stuff pales in comparison to learning how to play the cello and making it look convincing as you’re doing Tchaikovsky.”

Pascal took some piano lessons as a child, and has a finely tuned musical ear as a self-confessed film music nerd, sharing that he will watch certain movies based on their composer alone, with a particular fondness for the music of John Williams and Thomas Newman.

Read more: Does Leo Woodall really play piano in ‘Tuner’?

Behemoth! Trailer

The character of Alex struck a personal chord with Pascal, who said he had an immediate connection to the role. “Alex is not a rock star. He’s not even somebody that’s looking for the spotlight. He’s just someone whose first language is music,” Pascal told Vanity Fair. “It’s a love letter to music; it’s a love letter to movies.”

Screenwriter and director Tony Gilroy admitted he initially had doubts about casting Pascal at first, telling Vanity Fair: “I thought he was going to be somehow superficial or flighty. He’s just…really, really smart about how to be a movie star…absolutely willing and eager to enter into a completely honest, no-holds-barred conversation.”

Gilroy was inspired to write the screenplay after working closely with composers on his previous projects: “You might have 30, 60, 90 players in a room,” he told Vanity Fair, “and they could hardly be more diverse. The moment they enter the music and start to play, all that individuality... disappears. It’s a really fascinating transformation... I can’t believe no one’s made a movie about this before.”

Read more: 10 greatest film composers of all time

In a film where the score is also the main plot, Gilroy said it would be “such a mistake” to hire just one composer. Instead, Behemoth! features no fewer than nine composers contributing to its score, including Michael Giacchino, James Newton Howard, Alan Silvestri and Emily Bear.

However, Academy rules state that you can have no more than three credited composers, this film about film scoring will be ineligible for an Oscar for best film score.

Behemoth! will be released in cinemas, December 2026.