Mathew McConaughey almost took Pedro Pascal’s biggest role of the year

Pedro Pascal is the biggest actor on television. He already had impressive stints on Narcos and Game of Thrones, but the one-two punch of The Mandalorian and The Last of Us has truly made him the top pick when it comes to prestige dramas. Pascal has earned universal acclaim for his turn as Joel, the traumatized father figure who gives The Last of Us some of its most searing moments.

The thing is, Pascal wasn’t the only one up for the role. During a recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, HBO’s The Last of Us co-creator Craig Mazin revealed that he considered going with Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey instead. “[We] did talk to Matthew,” Mazin said.

“I can’t say that it was like a series [of conversations]. It was more of a, ‘Hey, here’s something to talk about.’” The idea didn’t go much further, however, as Pascal, the original choice, was able to clear his schedule and sign on for multiple seasons. “Pedro was on our list from the start,” the co-creator explained. “We were told he was unavailable, and then as we were floundering about a little bit, I got a call from his agent who said, ‘You know, he actually might be available.’”

McConaughey has been a movie star for three decades, and has worked with everyone from Steven Spielberg to Christopher Nolan. The notion of him being in an HBO show might seem odd at first glance, but he actually played a crucial role in the development of what we now consider to be “prestige TV.”

McConaughey signed on to HBO’s True Detective (2014) when there was still a dividing line between film and television. The latter was considered lesser than, and it took stellar performances by McConaughey and Woody Harrelson to help break the stigma. The first season of True Detective remains one of the network’s crowning achievements, and McConaughey was nominated for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe.

We’re not saying that McConaughey would have been better than Pascal, but he’s proven that he could dominate a show in the past, and an alternate version of the show with him as the lead sounds pretty interesting. Mazin agrees. “Matthew McConaughey is an amazing actor,” he told Sad Happy Confused host Josh Horowitz. “I’m sure it would have been great but it would have been different, and I like the one that we made, so what can I say, I think it worked out.”

McConaughey considered running for governor of Texas in 2022, but decided against it, citing a desire to focus on what makes him happy. “I don’t think that’s where I can be the most useful right now,” he said on the Dear Chelsea podcast. “I’m having too good of a time. I’ve got three kids — 14, 13, 10 — I’m enjoying being a dad, a family man.”

We’d love to see McConaughey reunite with HBO. The actor seems to be embracing the streaming era based on Agent Elvis; the animated Netflix show in which he voiced the titular singer. His next live-action release will be the crime drama The Rivals of Amziah King, which is directed by Andrew Patterson and described by Variety as a “deeply atmospheric, character-focused crime thriller set against the unique backdrop of remote Oklahoma.”