Pedro Pascal might be making his box office debut as a Marvel superhero in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” but he didn’t need to slip into spandex to become the leftist hero the right hates to see coming.
As a matter of fact, the 50-year-old “babygirl”—an internet term used to describe a man unafraid to express his vulnerable side—has been a champion of issues that President Donald Trump and his supporters tend to foam at the mouth over.
Take his fashion statements alone. In April, Pascal graced the red carpet with “PROTECT THE DOLLS” emblazoned across his chest. The slogan backs the transgender women currently under attack by Trump and his minions.
And as a bearded man who has no fear when it comes to choosing style over being viewed as traditionally masculine, he is also unafraid to call out anyone who bashes the LGBTQ+ community.
When “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling celebrated a new U.K. law this past April that strips more rights from transgender individuals, Pascal took to the comment section of a post regarding her celebration to publicly voice his disdain.
“Awful disgusting SHIT is exactly right. Heinous LOSER behavior,” he wrote via Instagram in response to an influencer’s post.
And more recently in the U.S., when Trump’s team successfully shut down the federally funded LGBTQ+ suicide hotline, Pascal himself promoted The Trevor Project’s crisis hotline while calling out the attacks on the community.
On top of many posts supporting the LGBTQ+ community and the constant championing of his transgender sister named Lux, Pascal used his platform to speak out when Trump’s ICE agents first began to infiltrate Los Angeles and target immigrants in the sanctuary city.
Los Angeles was “built by the best of us,” he wrote alongside a video of proud Latino men and women.
Pascal is the son of Chilean refugees who immigrated to the U.S. with their children. And he won’t let anyone forget that—especially now.
In Cannes, he reminded reporters during the May film festival that he, too, is an immigrant and that he wanted to remain “on the right side of history.”
“I want people to be safe and to be protected,” he said at the time. “I am an immigrant. My parents are refugees from Chile. We fled a dictatorship and I was privileged enough to grow up in the United States after asylum in Denmark.”
“If it weren’t for that, I don’t know what would have happened to us.,” Pascal said. “I stand by those protections always.”
But as the wildly popular Pascal stands up for these issues, a weird backlash is brewing—and conservatives seems to be grasping to find fault with the A-list actor.
On Thursday, right-leaning online mouthpieces called out Pascal for what they likened to “Me too” behavior.
“How does Pedro Pascal get away with heavily petting his female costars, in Hollywood of all places, after the entire industry was upended over MeToo several years ago?” John Ekdahl wrote in a now viral tweet.
And while any criticism of unwarranted touching is always valid, Ekdahl—who appears to be referring to Pascal’s latest publicity tour with “Fantastic Four” costar Vanessa Kirby—seems to be missing the multiple videos where Kirby is enthusiastically “petting” him back.
Then again, the concept of consent can be hard to explain to … some people.
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But while the right stays mad about Pascal’s ability to make any person feel comfortable around him, “The Last of Us” star has made it clear that no amount of fame or backlash will silence him.
“I think it’s very easy to get scared no matter what you sort of talk about,” he told Sky News. “There’s so many different ways that things can get kind of fractured and have a life of itself really.”
But regardless of how media outlets or haters try to misconstrue his words, he isn’t going away.
“There’s one thing that you can say and no matter what your intention behind it, it is absolutely lost in all of these different headlines, I suppose, but I’ll never shut up,” he promised.