The Last of Us: Pascal Compares THAT Moment with "Game of Thrones" (2025)

Posted in: Game Of Thrones, HBO, TV | Tagged: game of thrones, the last of us

The Last of Us star Pedro Pascal compared "that moment" from this past weekend's Season 2 episode with his final moment on Game of Thrones.

Pedro Pascal is well aware of a certain reputation he has in Hollywood, shared with others like Gary Oldman, Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer, Sean Bean, Michael Biehn, Mark Hamill, and Christopher Lee, in that many of his characters tend to die on screen across film and television. As The Last of Us star has been active for nearly three decades, he vaulted into superstardom in the HBO high fantasy series Game of Thrones as Prince Oberyn Martell, who did his best impression of Mandy Pantinkin from The Princess Bride (1987), trying to avenge his sister and fight for the honor of Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage). While promoting his work on the Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann series, he spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the fate of some of his characters.

The Last of Us Star Pedro Pascal on What Made His 'Game of Thrones' Exit Special.

A few of the projects Pascal's characters have met a grim demise include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Equalizer 2 (2018), Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), and his current HBO series that found his Joel Miller dying at the hands of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) to avenge her father, an unarmed doctor set to perform fatal surgery on Ellie. Joel executed him before freeing Ellie (Bella Ramsey) in the season one finale. "I get killed a lot," Pascal told EW in a comically matter-of-fact tone. "I like to die."

As far as how he compares his latest death stacks up, "I think this is the best one," he says. "No, it's in competition, I think, with 'Game of Thrones.' It has to be. I love the golf club. I'm going to start golf." "You going to bridge the gap in this relationship and make it right?" Dever adds in jest. In Game of Thrones, Oberyn was doing quite well for himself in battle against the Mountain (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson) during the season four episode "The Mountain and the Viper." Sadly, just as it looked David was going to overcome Goliath, the Mountain had the final laugh and crushed his opponent's head in as over-the-top a fashion as possible.

In The Last of Us, Abby planned to work her way up to Joel but found herself isolated on the snowy bank after an avalanche. After stumbling upon a group of infected frozen in the snow, before they roused, bringing chase to the former Firefly. As she finds a building to flee, she barely manages to escape between a wall and a chain link fence before Joel saves her from an infected. After offering his assistance, Abby leads him and Dina (Isabela Merced) to her camp to spring their trap on him. With Dina incapacitated, Abby reveals the truth about her after she gets Joel to confess to his whereabouts before torturing him by shooting his leg with a shotgun.

After she wails on him with a golf club and her fists, beating him to a bloody pulp, Ellie catches up before getting detained herself.After Owen (Spencer Lord) tells Abby to finish it, she takes a broken end of a golf club and buries it in Joel's neck, killing him. As Abby's group walks off, Ellie comes to Joel's body, removing the golf club fragment and lying on top of him, overwhelmed in grief, before Jesse (Young Mazino) arrives to take the survivors and Joel's remains back to town.

For more, including how Joel's death was jokingly part of the selling point of taking the role on the series, and more, you can check the full interview alongside Ramsey. The Last of Us airs Sundays on HBO and streams on Max.