Pedro Pascal Auditioned For The Vampire Diaries

[Aquaboy]

Actor Pedro Pascal auditioned for - and didn’t get -  a role on the teen supernatural drama The Vampire Diaries. The Vampire Diaries premiered on The CW in 2009 and aired for 8 seasons. It was based on a series of young adult books by L. J. Smith and starred Nina Dobrev as Elena Gilbert, a teen girl who becomes embroiled in a love triangle with two vampire brothers, played by Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley.  The show was a huge hit for The CW, and even though its finale aired in 2017, fans are still hoping that The Vampire Diaries season 9 will happen.

The Vampire Diaries spawned the spinoff The Originals, which in turn got its own spinoff, Legacies. Season 4, episode 20 of The Vampire Diaries acted as a backdoor pilot for The Originals, which would go on to air for 5 seasons from 2013 to 2018. That episode introduced a new setting, New Orleans, and a new group of characters who would become the leads of the spinoff series. One of these new characters was Marcel Gerard, a charismatic and complicated vampire who runs New Orleans. Marcel was played by actor Charles Michael Davis, also known for his work on Younger, but it seems Davis wasn’t the only person in the running for the role.

In a podcast interview for EW, The Vampire Diaries executive producer Julie Plec revealed that Pedro Pascal also auditioned for the role of Marcel and that she was “obsessed with him.” Plec went on to explain that Pascal ultimately didn’t get the role because he was “on the older side” and that Davis “just had that swagger” that the character of Marcel needed. Read her comments below:

"One of the other people who read opposite Charles [Michael Davis] for that part was Pedro Pascal, who I loved. I was obsessed with him. But he was just too on the older side, right? So whilst everyone else was like, oh my god Charles Michael Davis, like blown away and so excited - and I of course loved him and am so happy we cast him - but I was in full Pedro Pascal fangirl mode and was just like, oh my god, he's so great. But Charles, like, I mean 'I am the king', right? He just had that swagger."

Plec continued on to say that though the decision to cast Davis was otherwise unanimous, she was still "having Pedro Pascal fantasies." At the time the episode aired, Pascal was in his late 30s, and Davis was in his late 20s, so if the creative team saw Marcel as a vampire frozen at a younger age, it makes sense that they would have chosen Davis, especially since he inhabited the role so well. While fans of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals may have a hard time picturing anyone other than Davis as Marcel, it’s certainly interesting to imagine what the show would have been like if Pascal had been cast in the role instead.

Though Pascal was likely disappointed in his audition’s outcome at the time, not booking the part on The Vampire Diaries may have been a blessing in disguise, as it meant he was available for what would become one of his most famous roles as the ill-fated Oberyn Martell, aka the Red Viper, on HBO’s mega-hit Game of Thrones. Since then, he has worked steadily on other high-profile projects, including Narcos, The Mandalorian, and HBO’s upcoming TV series The Last of Us, based on the beloved video game. While he couldn’t have known the impressive shape his career would take back when he wasn’t cast in The Vampire Diaries in 2013, it’s safe to say that at this point, Pascal probably doesn’t regret losing out on the role of Marcel.

[Silent Watcher]

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