Before he landed that Buffy cameo, Pedro Pascal lied that he was going to be in Twin Peaks (and that he was Christian Bale, too)

Game of Thrones, The Last of Us, The Mandalorian, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Hugely popular titles or franchises that have one thing in common: Pedro Pascal. There was a time, though, when the actor was struggling to book roles early on in his career.

Pascal has made no secret of that over the years, recalling how his close friend Sarah Paulson (American Horror Story) even let him sleep on her couch when he was auditioning for gigs. Now, in a new interview with Babygirl director Halina Reijn for The A24 podcast, he's confessed to regularly fibbing about jobs that he'd booked in order to seem more successful at the start of his career.

"I think I read something that you had said, you said that you saw Annie when you were a kid and you felt jealous of the girl, and that was when you understood [that you wanted to be on stage]," he said. "I had the same experience watching these children in [Steven] Spielberg movies. I was like, 'I'm jealous of Elliot. I wanna meet the alien.'

"I remember reading a story about how Spielberg met Heather O'Rourke, who played Carol Anne in Poltergeist in a park, and I was like, 'What park?!'" Pascal laughed. "I was so obsessed I started to lie. I remember trying to convince somebody that I was Christian Bale on the poster of Empire of the Sun. And speaking of our beloved David Lynch, I told everyone that I was gonna be in Twin Peaks before it premiered on ABC. Those lies always caught up to me by the way, in a terrible way."

Fortunately, just a few years later, Pascal got a break with a bit-part role in '90s supernatural show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "I want [Sarah Michelle Gellar] to know that I remember every moment of shooting that episode, as brief as it was. She was such a kind scene partner, and we had the best time," he previously told Access Hollywood. "It was a super big deal."

Next up for him is The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the next movie in the MCU's Multiverse Saga, in which he plays Reed Richards AKA Mr. Fantastic opposite Joseph Quinn's Johnny Storm, Ebon Moss-Bachrach's Ben Grimm, and Vanessa Kirby's Sue Storm.

It releases on July 25. While we wait, check out our guide to all the fun Easter eggs we spotted in the Fantastic Four: First Steps trailer, or our breakdown of how to watch the Marvel movies in order.