- Pedro Pascal has shared the bizarre mnemonic system he uses to memorize his lines.
- The actor's technique involves writing down the first letter of every word in a vertical column.
Pedro Pascal has given an insight into how he learns his lines, and it is, as he put it himself, "psychotic."
The "Last of Us" star revealed the unique method he uses to memorize scripts during a recent SAG-AFTRA Foundation virtual round table with his fellow SAG Awards nominees for Outstanding Performance by Male Actor in a Drama Series "The Morning Show" actor Billy Crudup, and "Succession" stars Matthew Macfadyen and Kieran Culkin.
At one point, the nominees were asked about their line-learning techniques, which prompted Pascal to share his.
"I bet I could find and show you the psychotic example, this physical example that I now have to do to learn my lines," he said as he began searching around on his desk.
The actor then held an open notebook to his camera, displaying a page covered in organized columns of letters, resembling an unsolved word search.
As Culkin noted, it looked like "gibberish," Pascal joked: "Basically, I'm the Unabomber."
The "Mandalorian" actor then explained that he jots down the first letter of every word and turns them into a cipher to help jolt his memory when recalling his lines without looking back at a script.
"You just use the first letter of each word and in kind of these sort of towers, these, columns, I guess," he explained. "It's this very, very tedious way of making yourself learn the lines."
He added that he had begun using the mnemonic memorization system to learn his lines after a "horrible experience" where he blanked on what he was supposed to say next during a Shakespeare in the Park production of "Much Ado About Nothing" in 2014.
While the method to Pascal's madness makes sense once you understand it, users on X couldn't help but poke fun at the actor.
"I have information that could lead to the immediate arrest of Pedro Pascal. (He's the Zodiac killer)," one person joked.
Others also saw the similarity between Pascal's page of notes and the Zodiac Killer's infamous ‘340 Cipher.'
have we tried giving pedro pascal the zodiac killer’s letters to see if he could unencrypt them
— tortured poets department intern (@thenoasletter) February 18, 2024
"Have we tried giving pedro pascal the zodiac killer's letters to see if he could unencrypt them," someone else wrote.
Meanwhile, following the recent news, Pascal will be making his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic in the upcoming "Fantastic 4" reboot, some saw it as confirmation that Pascal will nail the role of "the smartest man on earth."
"I see Reed Richards all over this man. He'll do amazing," one person commented in response to a widely circulated clip of the interview, while another added: "I was on the 'Pedro is miscast as Reed' train until I saw this."
Someone else joked: "Imagine if Pedro just flashed the Fantastic Four script and none of us can decipher it."