Pedro Pascal are Ethan Hawke are queer cowboys in Strange Way of Life
Pedro Pascal, the Chilean American actor and internet daddy, will make his next appearance after HBO’s The Last of Us and season 3 of The Mandalorian in a very different, but still mouthwatering, project. Pascal stars alongside Ethan Hawke in a queer Western short film written and directed by the Spanish master Pedro Almodóvar, which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month.
Strange Way of Life is about a rancher (Pascal) who visits his old friend Sheriff Jake (Hawke); 25 years earlier, the duo had worked together as hired guns. But the pair’s reunion seems to unearth a passionate secret.
“The strange way of life referred in the title alludes to the famous fado [mournful Portuguese song] by Amalia Rodrigues, whose lyrics suggest that there is no stranger existence than the one that is lived by turning your back on your own desires,” Almodóvar says in press materials for the film.
The short’s themes are also pretty plain from the trailer: One shot has Hawke closing in to kiss the back of Pascal’s neck, and elsewhere, Pascal says in voice-over: “Years ago, you asked me what two men could do, living together on a ranch. I’ll answer you now.”
The Western genre is new to Almodóvar, although he’s always been strongly influenced by vintage Hollywood melodramas, which seems to be the mode this new film is in. Going by the trailer, it’s shot in his distinctive style, too, with eye-popping costumes and set decoration, classical shot composition, and performances of controlled passion.
Strange Way of Life is only Almodóvar’s second work in English, after 2020’s Tilda Swinton-starring short The Human Voice. The director of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and All About My Mother, known for his flamboyant farces
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