Pedro Pascal on Why He’s Starring in ‘Merge Mansion’ Mobile Game Commercials
The 'Last of Us' and 'The Mandalorian' actor says he not only likes a good mystery, but is "being introduced to the world of gaming in a way that the stories are as compelling to those that kind of had me and held my imagination as a kid."
Pedro Pascal says that his love of mysteries — and new opportunities in the world of content creation — are why he jumped on board for a series of Merge Mansion commercials.
Last month, social media chatter around the Last of Us and The Mandalorian star picked up when fans spotted him in a new commercial for the mobile game. In a trio of minute-long spots filmed in Lisbon, Portugal, Pascal portrays Tim Rockford, a detective who has set out to unravel the mysteries around “Grandma’s” mysterious home.
“Everything points to Grandma,” Pascal’s Rockford says in one spot. “It’s almost like some twisted game.”
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Pascal is the second major actor — following Kathy Bates — to appear in commercials for the app, a puzzle discovery game from Finnish company Metacore that had more than 800,000 daily players as of 2021, according to TechCrunch, and amassed close to $40 million in annual revenue that year alone. (The game developer recently held an interactive activation that allowed fans to enter a real-life version of the game’s “mansion” and solve a puzzling mystery.)
In a recent interview with Insider, Pascal shared, “I particularly like a mystery,” before adding that he likes “the tone and atmosphere of this kind of experience that Merge Mansion provides.” But that was only part of why he chose to appear in the ads. The other reason was an opportunity to enter new content spaces as a performer.
“What I love is that different opportunities continue to emerge, and content continues to emerge in so many different ways,” he said. “And I’m being introduced to the world of gaming in a way that the stories are as compelling to those that kind of had me and held my imagination as a kid and as a teenager and as a young adult and now.
“My past is exemplary of not wanting to limit what the opportunities are or what the experiences are,” he continued.
In another recent interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, Pascal pointed out his love of how the game immerses players in its mystery. He also admitted he’d “never done anything like this before” — largely out of the mobile gaming culture around apps like Merge Mansion. “I haven’t really been in the know … But I guess I’m just drawn to things that I feel like I would enjoy.”
As for whether he’d take on an expanded story for Rockford, the actor responded, “It has not come up, but anything is possible.”
