Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke had instant chemistry playing gay lovers, says director Pedro Almodóvar

I don’t visualize the faces, the colors, the style until I have finished the script. The script is always the first stone and just then immediately appears the faces, the type of actors – everything – and also visually, I feel out what kind of movie I want to do. Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke were my first choice. 

Fortunately, I knew them personally so I could call them and send them directly the script; and they just answered me the same day. They were very enthusiastic. It gives you a lot of confidence when someone reacts like that. It was the fastest casting that I did and also the more appropriate because I wanted two actors at that age, but very different, even different cultures, different origins and physically different. And they were. 

They love each other. They knew the work of the other. It was a chemistry that immediately appeared since the very beginning. So that helps a lot.

Oscar-winning director Pedro Almodóvar speaking to Deadline about why Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke were the only choices to star in his new queer Western short, A Strange Way of Life.