Tony Gilroy Almost Scrapped Behemoth! Until a Lunch With Pedro Pascal
Lunch is a power move.
Andor creator Tony Gilroy came very close to walking away from his new movie, Behemoth! In a new interview, he told Variety that after Oscar Isaac left the project, he was already practicing the speech he'd give his crew on the way to meet Pedro Pascal (Variety).
According to Gilroy, the plan was to tell everyone, "We tried really hard. We're not doing this movie now. I'll find us something else." Then that lunch with Pascal completely changed his mind.
Here's the full trailer from Searchlight Pictures, which we broke down earlier this week.
What happened at that lunch?
Gilroy says Isaac was lost to "a traffic jam between 'Frankenstein' and awards," and he had already pushed the start date as far as he was willing to go. He and producer Sanne Wohlenberg still went to meet Pascal anyway, mostly expecting to deliver the disappointing news afterward (Variety).
"10 minutes into lunch, I'm like, 'Oh my God, can he be this perfect?'" Gilroy said. "There must be something wrong with him." The meeting ended up lasting three hours, and Gilroy described the whole conversation as "more of a prenup than a meeting." By the next day, Pascal had a cello. (Some of us can't commit to a lunch order that fast.)
What is Behemoth! about?
Pascal plays Alex Serian, a cellist who comes home to Los Angeles after 20 years on the road and starts recording film scores, including a giant studio movie with the secret title "Behemoth!" Olivia Wilde, Will Arnett, Eva Victor and Hank Azaria also star (Wikipedia).
Gilroy got the idea while watching Michael Giacchino score Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The music in the movie comes from nine composers, including Giacchino, James Newton Howard and Alan Silvestri, all credited together as "The Behemoth! Collective." Every one of them got the same fee and equal billing (Variety).
When does Behemoth! come out?
Searchlight Pictures opens the movie in theaters on December 4. It premiered as the Centerpiece of the New York Film Festival in October, and Variety now sees it as an Oscar contender, especially for Pascal in Best Actor. It's also Gilroy's first movie as a director since The Bourne Legacy back in 2012, after he spent most of the last six years making both seasons of Andor.
My read is that this is the most Pedro Pascal story ever told. He's spent years being the best part of big franchise projects, and a small, strange movie about a lonely cellist could be the role that finally lets him stretch. Gilroy also gave fans of Andor everything they could have wanted, so he's earned our trust here.
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Images are official stills from Behemoth!, from Searchlight Pictures.
