Over a month later, Pedro Pascal still has not gotten over his “SNL50” flub. The “Last of Us” star was one of several A-list celebrities who made a cameo appearance in the “Saturday Night Live” anniversary special.
Pascal appeared alongside Sabrina Carpenter, Bad Bunny and “SNL” cast members Marcello Hernández, Andrew Dismukes and Chloe Fineman, among others, in the comedy show’s latest sequel to its previous, viral “Domingo” sketches. In the sketch, Pascal crashes the vow renewal of Fineman and Dismukes’ married characters and sings a parody of Carpenter’s radio hit, “Espresso,” in which he proudly recalls a previous tryst with Dismukes’ Matt.
Pascal’s cameo made waves online, but some were quick to note that he messed up his musical timing in the sketch by prematurely starting to sing his “Espresso” parody twice before the song actually began. It was a minor mistake but one that still haunts Pascal, as he revealed in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“My nightmare of karaoke,” Pascal said when reflecting on his role in “Domingo: Vow Renewal.” “I was the first record scratch of the night by missing my cues like three times in a row.”
“I remember thinking, ‘F—k! I f—ked it up!’” Pascal continued. “I was really, really upset with myself for missing the cues. I feel like there was a cognitive and auditory failure on my part where I was so nervous I really couldn’t hear what was happening or what the cue was. I guess no matter what kind of singing and how bad or funny it’s supposed to be, I have just sheer terror of having to sing in any kind of capacity.”
Despite his lingering horror over his offbeat “SNL50” misstep, Pascal told EW the NBC sketch series’ studio is still his “favorite place to be” and had nothing but good things to say about Carpenter. “She was like, ‘Okay! So I got a note last minute,’” the actor said, recalling his and Carpenter’s prep before their sketch. “She’s like, ‘I’m going to be grinding on you hard.’ And I was like, ‘You do whatever you want.’ And then before I knew it, we were up on stage.”
“It’s kind of like an outer body experience that I can barely recall outside of my f—k up,” Pascal concluded.
Fortunately for him, 2025 is shaping up to be a big and exciting year for the actor. Not only is he reprising his role as Joel in the second season of HBO’s “The Last of Us” this spring but he is also set to lead Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” which is scheduled to hit theaters in July, as Reed Richards. By the time the latter film has been released, his “SNL50” flub will, hopefully, be nothing more than a distant memory for him.
