Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke to star in Pedro Almodóvar’s ‘new Brokeback Mountain’
(L-R) Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke (Image: Getty)
Actors Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke are to star in an upcoming short film being tipped as the “new Brokeback Mountain”.
Critically-acclaimed director Pedro Almodóvar revealed details of his new Western project in an interview with IndieWire, with Pascal and Hawke taking on the role of gay, middle-aged gunslingers.
“There will be a showdown between them, but really the story is very intimate,” he said. When asked whether it could be romantic, Almodóvar chuckled and teased: “You can guess, masculinity is one of the subjects of the movie.”
The 30-minute film, titled Strange Ways of Life, is the Spanish filmmaker’s “answer to Brokeback Mountain“, except without the elements that the director feels are “too Hollywood”.
Almodóvar’s was originally chosen to direct the award-winning LGBTQ+ romantic drama Brokeback Mountain but turned it down to maintain his creative autonomy, claiming that “Hollywood wants to bring in outside talent, but they don’t always let them do what they want to do”.
He told Empire in a 2016 podcast that his interpretation of Annie Proulx’s original short story was to include “more sex, more sex”.
“And it’s not gratuitous. The Annie Proulx [story] is about a physical relation, an animal relation, so sex is necessary because it is the body of the story.”
The film director Pedro Almodovar speaks during the II edition of the Rainbow Awards for the International LGTBI Pride Day (Photo By Isabel Infantes/Europa Press via Getty Images)
Part of his reason for turning down the project was his assurance that, as he told Vulture in 2019: “I couldn’t do it as physical as I wanted to. Perhaps I will one day make a movie in English, but it will be with European money, then I can be as free as I am now.”
According to the director himself, Strange Way of Life is his attempt to exercise this very freedom with a concept that he is certain is his.
Pascal confirmed his involvement in an Instagram post in April where he shared a video of Almodóvar discussing the project in Spanish. He also tagged Ethan Hawk in the clip, seemingly giving away that they would be working together.
