After months of teasing and anticipation, we’re finally getting our first look at Strange Way of Life, a 30-minute short film by queer filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar starring the internet’s daddy, Pedro Pascal, and gay fave Ethan Hawke as cowboys and former lovers.
In the newly released poster for the short, the two men stand side by side, guns out and cocked, against a mountainous background. The pose is drawing comparisons to another camp (queer-coded) Western, Joan Crawford’s 1954 Johnny Guitar.
In a second image, the two come face to face, and the (sexual) tension is palpable.
Almodóvar has previously called Strange Way of Life his answer to Brokeback Mountain. According to the official synopsis: “A man rides a horse across the desert that separates him from Bitter Creek. He comes to visit Sheriff Jake (Hawke). Twenty-five years earlier, both the sheriff and Silva (Pascal), the rancher who rides out to meet him, worked together as hired gunmen. Silva visits him with the excuse of reuniting with his friend from his youth, and they do indeed celebrate their meeting, but the next morning Sheriff Jake tells him that the reason for his trip is not to go down the memory lane of their old friendship.”
Following a screening, Almodóvar refused to give away any more details. “I must say no more so as not to give away all the surprises of the script,” he said. “The strange way of life referred to in the title alludes to the famous fado by Amalia Rodrigues, whose lyrics suggest that there is no stranger existence than the one that is lived by turning your back on your own desires.”
Pascal has been raving about his opportunity to play Silva and work with Almodóvar. “He absolutely opened up an entire world of storytelling, color, culture, rebellion, and sexuality that was just absolutely intoxicating, dangerous, hilarious, heartbreaking, and encompassing the whole spectrum, but with such a signature style,” Pascal recently told Insider, adding he would have done anything the director asked of him. “I would have done it without question.”
He was also drawn to the short by the opportunity to work with Hawke. “To get to work with Ethan, whose movies I’ve seen since I was a little kid, who I’ve seen onstage off-Broadway, on Broadway, whose books I’ve read, whose plays I’ve seen him direct, and big movies, small movies, horror movies,” he said.
We can’t wait to see their chemistry play out on screen!
Strange Way of Life will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
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