Pedro Pascal made his “Hot Ones” debut on Thursday and, like most guests on the spicy-wings show, he wound up cursing and sweating quite a bit. But between waves of peppery pain, the actor revealed his personal Mount Rushmore of movies starring his “Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” co-star, Nicolas Cage.
And for what it’s worth, he was very prepared for this question, even if he was seven wings deep and about to be tormented by “Da Bomb: Beyond Insanity” sauce. When host Sean Evans asked Pascal to pick his top four Cage movies, he offered to toss out some suggestions, but Pascal needed no help.
“No no, you don’t have to throw any at me,” he brushed off with a laugh.
So, what are his top four Cage movies? Well, they’re some of the actor’s earliest work.
“The earlier ones, for me, because of how impressionable they are,” he said. “But, ‘Raising Arizona,’ ‘Peggy Sue Got Married,’ ummmm ‘Face/Off,’ and I got a soft spot for ‘Moonstruck,’ man.”
Pascal made a point to note that those four being his favorites weren’t necessarily because Cage was going out on a limb in his acting, or doing something unexpected. In fact, Pascal admires his co-star’s work in those films specifically because it’s so calculated.
“It isn’t even about having a big swing in terms of performance. It is actually highly, highly intelligent choice-making in his acting,” Pascal explained.
The “Mandalorian” star added that getting ready to work with Cage in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” — in which Pascal plays a massive Cage fan, to the point of having a room full of Cage collectibles — was “really amazing” because he got to “re-watch all these movies I’d already seen so many times.”
That said, Pascal did have a fifth movie to give honorable mention to in his Mount Cage-more.
“‘Adaptation’ is maybe one of the best screen performances in the history of American cinema, but the four that I mentioned have, you know, a personal place in my development as an aspiring actor,” he explained.
“And to this day, in my DNA a little bit, where I realize that I — I’m doing something, and I’m saying something in a way that I have to stop, and take a second and realize, oh, I got that from ‘Vampire’s Kiss’ or something.”
You can watch the full episode of “Hot Ones” in the video above.
