Pedro Pascal calls learning cello for ‘Behemoth!’ ‘hell and heaven’: ‘I took it everywhere’ |
Pedro Pascal has learned plenty for his movie roles, but apparently nothing quite prepared him for the cello. For ‘Behemoth!’, Pascal plays Alex Serian, a gifted cellist whose life begins to unravel after he returns to Los Angeles. While the character may have spent years mastering the instrument, Pascal had only a fraction of that time to make it look convincing on screen.The actor opened up about the unusual preparation during the film’s New York Film Festival press conference on October 2, 2026. “The cello was the main character of my life for several weeks leading up to shooting. I took it with me everywhere I went,” Pascal said.That probably sounds slightly dramatic until he explained what learning the instrument actually involved. “Everything surprised me; it was hell … and heaven,” he said, adding that he enjoyed being “in lessons again with another artist” and dealing with the “physical challenge” and “meticulousness” of playing the cello.
Pedro Pascal had just a week to learn the cello
Pedro Pascal did not have the luxury of spending years becoming a convincing cellist. He explained that it can normally take as long as a year just to learn how to properly hold a cello bow. For ‘Behemoth!’, the process had to be “fast-tracked”, and Pascal had about a week.“I never caught up to it,” he admitted. Oddly enough, that became part of what he enjoyed about the experience.“I never caught up to it, which was kind of the ecstasy of it, I suppose,” Pascal said. “It was a joy, but it was the hardest thing that I’ve ever done creatively for a part.” His preparation even followed him to Vienna, where he had to cram in Mozart.The actor also remembered his first conversation with Tony Gilroy about whether he could actually pull the role off. Pascal was nervous and did not pretend he had all the answers. “I’m like, ‘I don’t know,’” he recalled.
Why Pedro Pascal took the risk
The cello was not the only thing that made Pedro Pascal hesitate. He said the nonlinear story initially felt like a “challenge in a good way”. But there was something about the script that kept pulling him back.“I was so taken by what the story was and the kind of intimacy of all of it,” Pascal said, particularly the way it can feel intimate “to listen to music and to be guided by music.” That connection seems to have been enough to make him jump in, even without knowing whether he could master the instrument.‘Behemoth!’ premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 2, 2026, and is scheduled to open in US theatres on December 4, 2026. Film at Lincoln Center describes the film as a story about a cellist trying to pick up the pieces of a fractured life.CentreFor Pedro Pascal, though, the story started with a much more basic question: could he actually play the cello? His answer at the time was, essentially, “I don’t know.” He just decided to take the instrument everywhere and find out.
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