MOVIE NEWS – In the latest episode of the popular sketch comedy Saturday Night Live, Hollywood’s current grumpy superstar perfectly portrayed Nintendo’s iconic plumber.

Ever since he popped up as Oberyn Martell on Game of Thrones, Pedro Pascal’s rise to stardom has been quite entertaining. In practically anything he plays, he’s a joy to watch, even if the product itself isn’t great. And as the star of Mandalorian and HBO’s new prestige series The Last of Us, it’s clear that people want to see Pedro Pascal as a grumpy, gun-toting mentor. The latest Saturday Night Live sketch put a twist on that very character.

Pascal was the host of last night’s episode, and in one sketch, he played Mario in the prestige version of Nintendo’s Mario Kart series (not at all a rip-off of The Last of Us…)

Instead of escorting Ellie across the country, she has to escort Princess Peach (Chloe Fineman) across Rainbow Road. Meanwhile, of course, Bowser (Kenan Thompson) is on the prowl. Yes, it’s literally a Nintendo reskin of Last of Us, right down to explaining the “Goombas” as sentient fungi, but it’s also pretty funny and just stupid enough to work.

Seeing Mario’s characters reimagined as “complex, dramatic HBO characters” is pretty funny – true, in the case of “complex” Toad and Yoshi (Bowen Yang), it’s just that they both communicate “I’m bisexual.”

But Pascal as Mario… is he actually good enough? He doesn’t imitate a dumb accent, but he basically plays it like Joel, and he’s totally serious. (His “It’s-a me, Mario” is probably the best dramatic version we’ll ever get of this line.) Maybe Nintendo could start making a live-action Mario movie with him as Mario and Charlie Day as Luigi, in addition to the animated movie coming out in a few months? Maybe we could even get him to play Wario…

Source: YouTube