Pedro Pascal recently became the 10th actor to appear in Marvel, DC, and Star Wars, completing the pop culture trifecta. Even as originals like Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Sinners find great success, Hollywood continues to fall back on its big franchises. Even after some bumps in the road, Marvel, DC, and Star Wars continue to generate constant attention from audiences, both in theaters and on streaming services. Roles in these franchises continue to be sought by many actors due to their immense popularity, fun production nature, and solid paychecks.
As these franchises take the world by storm, one of the biggest actors similarly dominating Hollywood is Chilean actor Pedro Pascal. The actor shot to fame after appearing in Game of Thrones but has more recently been seen in Gladiator 2, The Last of Us, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, The Mandalorian, Wonder Woman 1984, Eddington, Materialists, and a seemingly endless list of other projects.
Thanks to The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Pedro Pascal joins the MCU as Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic. After his latest pop culture role, the Emmy-nominated star has become only the 10th actor to complete the "holy trinity" of pop culture and join the Marvel, DC, and Star Wars universes.
But that isn't Pascal's only big role at Disney, as he also plays Din Djarin in The Mandalorian and next year's theatrical release, The Mandalorian & Grogu, leading him to become the current face of both Marvel and Star Wars. The Chilean actor brings the voice and helmetless face to Din Djarin, while stunt performers Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder are usually under the suit.
Pascal's one-off DC appearance came just before The Mandalorian rose him to the A-list to join the biggest actors in Hollywood today. Back in 2020, Pascal joined the DCEU in Wonder Woman 1984 as Maxwell Lord, but many missed the '80s flick due to its pandemic release and generally disappointing reception.
While other actors have completed the pop culture trifecta, Pedro Pascal may have done so in a bigger way than ever before. Between The Mandalorian and The Fantastic Four, he has been the heroic lead of a major Marvel and Star Wars project, while he was a villainous face at DC in Wonder Woman 1984.
Only nine other notable actors have appeared in Marvel, DC, and Star Wars projects, with most only having a minor or cameo role in at least one of the three:
Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman will be instantly recognizable to Marvel and Star Wars fans as Thor's Jane Foster and the prequel trilogy's Padme Amidala. Her DC role will be lesser-known to many, as it was as Evey Hammond in V for Vendetta, which is based on comics from DC's since-discontinued Vertigo imprint.
Andy Serkis
Andy Serkis is gearing up to reprise his DC role as Alfred Pennyworth in The Batman 2, which is expected to shoot next year. Meanwhile, he played the MCU's Black Panther villain Ulysses Klaue and took on two Star Wars roles as the sequel trilogy's Supreme Leader Snoke and Andor's Kino Loy.
Ben Mendelsohn
Ben Mendelsohn joined Star Wars with Rogue One as the Empire's Director Orson Krennic (a role he reprised in Andor Season 2). He also has his fair share of experience in the superhero genre, playing the now-deceased Talos in Captain Marvel and John Daggett in The Dark Knight Rises.
Taika Waititi
Taika Waititi offered the voices of The Mandalorian's IG-11 and Thor: Ragnarok's Korg, having also directed projects in the Marvel and Star Wars universes. His first DC role came in one of the blue brand's worst movies, playing Hal Jordan's friend Thomas Kalmaku in Green Lantern. He would later find some redemption in playing the original Ratcatcher in James Gunn's The Suicide Squad.
Clancy Brown
Clancy Brown voiced one of the MCU's most powerful and yet underused villains with Thor: Ragnarok's Surtur, but he also took to the street level as the U.S. Marine Colonel and secret drug lord Blacksmith in Daredevil and The Punisher. Similarly, Brown has played multiple characters in Star Wars but was most famously the Nightbrother Savage Opress in The Clone Wars. Over at DC, the busy actor famously voiced Lex Luthor in the DCAU and Superman: The Animated Series.
Dee Bradley Baker
Dee Bradley Baker is a renowned voice actor who most famously voiced every clone character in The Clone Wars, Rebels, and The Bad Batch. Baker brought to life a plethora of characters at DC, one of which he will reprise soon as Peacemaker's Eagley gets his own arch-nemesis in Season 2. His MCU credits don't get any less strange, as he also played Shang-Chi's faceless creature Morris.
David Harbour
David Harbour has become a pop culture icon since Stranger Things shot him to stardom, leading to his role as Red Guardian in Black Widow, Thunderbolts*, and the massive cast of Avengers: Doomsday. His dives into the other big two came through animation, voicing Frankenstein in DC's Creature Commandos and Jedi Master Tajin Crosser in the English dub of Star Wars' Visions episode, "The Elder."
Tom Hardy
British actor Tom Hardy is well-known for playing Bane in The Dark Knight Rises before becoming the face of Sony's Spider-Man Universe as Venom's Eddie Brock. His place on this list comes with something of an asterisk as his Star Wars role was just a masked cameo as Stormtrooper 926 in The Force Awakens.
Alan Tudyk
Alan Tudyk played a relative of Batman's, Van Wayne, in the DC sitcom Powerless in its only season before more recently becoming the only actor to play four characters in James Gunn's DCU. While Tudyk also got an expansive role in Star Wars as Cassian Andor's droid K-2SO, his Marvel tenure so far has been limited to an uncredited cameo as a redneck in Deadpool 2.
