Pedro Pascal has survived gladiator arenas, infected hordes, and galaxy-spanning adventures, but “Behemoth!” gives him a very different challenge: passing convincingly as a world-class cellist. Searchlight Pictures has released the first trailer for Tony Gilroy’s movie-music drama, which stars Pascal as Alex, a prodigal musician returning to Hollywood’s film-scoring world after decades on the road.
READ MORE: ‘Behemoth!’ First Look: Pedro Pascal Stars In Tony Gilroy’s “Love Letter” To Movie Music
Written and directed by Gilroy, “Behemoth!” centers on a former child prodigy and third-generation studio musician who has spent roughly two decades performing symphonic work around the country. Alex’s return to Los Angeles unfolds chronologically, but each new fictional movie cue he performs triggers a flashback revealing why he left the city and what ultimately brought him home.
The film marks Gilroy’s first directorial feature since 2012’s “The Bourne Legacy” and his fourth overall, following “Michael Clayton” and “Duplicity.” Of course, he has hardly been idle, serving as the chief creative force behind the acclaimed “Andor” and extensively reshaping “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” during post-production.
Pascal joined “Behemoth!” after Oscar Isaac departed the project, leaving Gilroy with the choice of either recasting the lead or abandoning a film he had spent years developing. A three-hour meeting convinced both men that they had found the right collaborator, and Pascal appears in every scene, portraying approximately 25 years of Alex’s life.
“This was stepping into the thing that I always wanted—a character where your own experience is the only source that you have,” Pascal told Vanity Fair this week, contrasting the role with the ensembles, creatures, masks, and franchise machinery that have surrounded many of his best-known performances.
Gilroy similarly views “Behemoth!” as a chance for audiences to see Pascal in a new light.
“Pedro Pascal’s taking center stage for the first time in his whole career. It’s his adventure. It’s his moment,” the filmmaker said. “And it’s really time for the audience to see how right they were to invest in him as a movie star.”
The ensemble includes Olivia Wilde, Will Arnett, Eva Victor, Hank Azaria, Matthew Lillard, Margarita Levieva, and Alexa Swinton. Azaria plays Alex’s musician father, while Arnett portrays his brother, replacing David Harbour during production. Victor stars as Nadia, a fellow cellist whom Alex romances while working in Dallas, and Wilde plays Carol, his leopard-print-wearing ex with an axe to grind.
The subject is unusually personal for Gilroy, who pursued music before becoming a screenwriter and spent a year interviewing professional studio players while writing the film. His work with composers Michael Giacchino on “Rogue One” and Nicholas Britell on “Andor” also fueled his fascination with the orchestral community behind movie music.
As The Playlist previously reported, Gilroy assembled nine composers—including Giacchino, James Newton Howard, and Alan Silvestri—to create the film’s various musical worlds.
The music is embedded directly into the story rather than functioning solely as accompaniment. Each fictional film requires its own voice, while the performances connect Alex’s present-day homecoming to memories spanning decades of his life.
For Pascal, the stripped-down nature of the character proved especially exposing after years of special effects, stunt work, and franchise spectacle.
“This is just so naked,” he recalled thinking after getting the cello work under control. “Am I out of practice?”
Gilroy’s answer appears to be an emphatic no. “This is closer to him than anybody’s ever seen,” the filmmaker said of Pascal’s performance.
“Behemoth!” also carries emotional weight for Gilroy, who realized while making it that he had never previously directed a film about a subject he genuinely loved.
“It sounds so trite, but I never made a movie about anything I loved before,” he said. “And I was already deep into making it before I realized that that was true.”
“Behemoth!” marks Gilroy’s first theatrical feature in 14 years. Searchlight Pictures has not yet set a release date. Watch the trailer below; it would seem perfect for a fall film festival run, followed by a release in November/December’s Oscar season.
