It's official: Pedro Pascal is set to star in Todd Haynes's upcoming movie, De Noche, which was halted in 2025 amid Joaquin Phoenix's abrupt departure. Pascal will reportedly play a "hard-boiled detective opposite Danny Ramirez as his younger lover" — a role originally meant for Phoenix.
De Noche, which has been described as a "subversive love story," centers the "passionate and unexpected love affair between a cop (Pascal) and a boarding school teacher (Ramirez)." The film is set in Los Angeles, on the brink of war, in the 1930s. As the story goes, Pascal's and Ramirez's characters become targets of corrupt politicians and have to escape to Mexico in order to survive.
Filmmaker Todd Haynes's writes in a statement, "This story, with Pedro Pascal and Danny Ramirez in the two leads, arises out of an era — all too relevant to our own — of domestic corruption, racial exploitation and global terror."
The story "emerges as a testament to the inexplicable powers of desire and love to survive and overcome," Haynes adds, "even the most crippling of human barriers." Much Haynes's latest film — May December starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore — De Noche also centers an age-gap relationship between its two main characters.
For context, Joaquin Phoenix was originally attached to the project (and is even credited as a "story by" writer in it) but abruptly exited the movie just five days before filming was set to begin in Guadalajara, Mexico, in August 2024.
Phoenix's exit caused De Noche to immediately shut down production. At the time, various reports suggested that the Joker actor got "cold feet" to play the explicit sex scenes included in the film. (Even though, it bears repeating, it's a movie based on a story that Phoenix himself originated.)
RELATED: 11 straight actors who would NEVER get cold feet for a gay role (like Joaquin Phoenix did)
Thankfully, Haynes's upcoming feature film is now back on track with Pascal and Ramirez as the two main leads and lovers.
Even though both actors already costarred in HBO's The Last of Us, they'll certainly now develop a much more intimate connection in De Noche.
