Eddington premiered at Cannes on Friday, the latest film from horror director Ari Aster (maybe that explains Emma Stone’s horrific Louis Vuitton dog cone collar, but I digress…). With a stacked cast that includes Pedro Pascal, Joaquin Phoenix, Austin Butler, and the aforementioned Emma Stone, I was about to say that this would be the first film festival stop among many for a traditional awards campaign, but no! Eddington is scheduled for release in July. The plot description on IMDb simply reads, “In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.” Pedro plays the mayor with Joaquin as the sheriff, and the standoff is pandemic-related. With the film being about politically-charged recent history (though the movie itself is fiction), the director and cast were asked legitimate questions during the press conference about possible retaliation from former and current President Trump. As always, Pedro spoke from the heart and showed he doesn’t suffer fools, however dangerous they may be.
“F–k the people that try to make you scared,” the Game of Thrones and The Last of Us actor said at a press conference at the Cannes film festival, promoting Ari Aster’s new film Eddington. “And fight back. And don’t let them win.”
He urged creatives to “keep telling the stories, keep expressing yourself and keep fighting for it”.
The comments came shortly after the US president used his Truth Social platform to call singer Bruce Springsteen a “pushy, obnoxious JERK” for criticising his leadership, and claim that Taylor Swift’s popularity had decreased since he announced his “hatred” for her.
“Obviously, it’s very scary for an actor participating in a movie to sort of speak to issues like this,” Pascal said when asked whether he feared that the US could completely close down to all forms of migration. “I want people to be safe and to be protected, and I want very much to live on the right [side] of history.”
“I’m an immigrant”, said Pascal, whose parents fled Pinochet-led Chile when he was nine years old. “We fled a dictatorship, and I was privileged enough to grow up in the US, after asylum in Denmark, and if it weren’t for that, I don’t know what would have happened to us. And so I stand by those needing protection, always.”
Pascal plays a small-town mayor in New Mexico alongside Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone and Austin Butler in the new film by Aster, the acclaimed director of “elevated horror” films Midsommar and Hereditary.
Asked whether he was concerned that the political message of films could be used against cast members when they tried to re-enter the US, Aster said: “The truth is, I’m scared of everything. All the time. So, yeah. The tongue is sort of in the cheek in that answer, but it’s also true.”
I’ve spoken here before about how I was the jerk in the audience who could not stop laughing during Hereditary. I’m sorry! I can’t help it, it’s my weird horror coping mechanism! But that’s usually for horror that veers into supernatural elements. I’m wondering if there’s any of that in Eddington, or if Aster let it be more, for lack of a better word, realistic. I’d say humanity brought all the horror on its own in that moment (and still does). Also, the tagline on the Eddington poster is brilliant: “Hindsight is 2020.” I’m super excited to see Pedro and Joaquin square off in this movie. Those are two wildly different, yet equally forceful energies. The dynamic even showed up in different moments at Cannes, with Pedro being at times playful and silly standing next to Joaquin, then also saving Joaquin from accidentally waving his arm in a way that could be misconstrued as a Nazi salute. (No really, watch it in motion.)
And speaking of Pedro… the man is out to kill us, right? It’s like all the goodness of the world is wrapped up in that Chilean-American Adonis Zaddy package. He may be the one drinking six shots of espresso daily, but I’m the one whose heart is about to explode! He is without question living on the right side of history (meaning the left side), and we see this from him time and time again.
Pedro Pascal at #Cannes when asked about America’s political chaos: “Fear is the way that they win, so keep telling the stories and expressing yourself and fighting. F*ck the people that try to make you scared and fight back. Don’t let them win.” https://t.co/DE7phlFjB5 pic.twitter.com/KwVJsg0zuN
— Variety (@Variety) May 17, 2025
Photos credit: Julie Edwards/Avalon, Olivier Huitel/Avalon, Lionel Guericolas/Avalon, Justin Ng/Avalon, Lionel Guericolas/Avalon, DPTIG/Backgrid