Netflix Crime Drama, Based on a True Story, Named the Best Pedro Pascal TV Show

Pedro Pascal, 51, has starred on multiple hit shows, like The Last of Us, Game of Thrones, andThe Mandalorian. TV Line has recently ranked his television performances and named a crime drama as 'The Best Pedro Pascal TV Show.'

Narcos, which ran from 2015 until 2017, is a Netflix series based on real events. It tells the story of Pablo Escobar and other drug kingpins who plagued Colombia. Pascal plays Javier Peña, a DEA agent who is trying to bring down Escobar.

The series, which has a 94% audience score onRotten Tomatoes, received several Golden Globe and Emmy nominations over the years. It also inspired a spin-off series, Narcos: Mexico, which is set in Mexico in the 1980s.

When asked how Pascal got cast during a conversation at the Television Critics Association press tour, executive producer Eric Newman said, "It's a terrible story, because I am a huge Game of Thrones fan, and one of the things you do when you put a show together is, you talk to all the agents about who's available, and in the midst of the build-up to the duel, I'm really invested in the show, and I love his character, and his agent says, ‘Guess what? Pedro Pascal is available next year.' Which means he's going to die in this duel that's coming up, and I was devastated for three weeks before the duel. I knew he was going to die, and I couldn't share it with anyone, and it was horrible. But we were so lucky to have him. It was a huge piece of casting for us."

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Pascal has also spoken about Narcos in interviews. When describing the aesthetic of the show to GQ in 2016, Pascal said, "I would call it very authentic. We shoot the whole show in Colombia. The aesthetic structure of the show uses a lot of archival footage, real documented news reels and photographs, articles of everything that actually took place alongside everything that we're shooting. It fits in perfectly as an aesthetic structure. To capture the environment is what makes Narcos the visual experience that it is. And the visual experience is really, in a way, the star of the show."

Pascal has been in many other hits in the last few years alone, including The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Gladiator II, and Materialists.

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This story was originally published May 18, 2026 at 1:14 PM.