After scaring off Hollywood with his super gay vision for “Brokeback Mountain”, Pedro’s own cowboy movie “Strange Way of Life” is on the way. Starring our favourite fabulous actors Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke. And somewhere in the distribution is also Manu Rio.
Once upon a time, camp Spanish cinema king Pedro Almodóvar was asked to direct Brokeback Mountain, but the link-up fell through and Ang Lee got the job instead. The story goes that Pedro wanted his version of the movie to be start-to-finish gay sex. “The relation between these two guys is animalistic,” Almodóvar told IndieWire of the failed collaboration. “It was a physical relationship.” Safe to say Hollywood didn’t approve. But thankfully, Pedro’s never lost sight of his ambitions to make a queer western: his own, titled Strange Way of Life, has just started shooting.
Created in collaboration with Saint Laurent’s Anthony Vaccarello, who’s both a producer on the film and its lead costume designer, Strange Way of Life is Pedro’s second English language short after 2020’s The Human Voice starring Tilda Swinton (A feature length English language film starring Cate Blanchett is also currently in the works). Strange Way of Life boasts a star-studded cast too, lead by Ethan Hawke, Pedro Pascal and Elite’s Manu Rios.
The plot line for the 30-minute feature has been uploaded to IMDb: “After twenty-five years Silva (Pedro Pascal) rides a horse across the desert to visit his friend Sheriff Jake (Ethan Hawke). They celebrate the meeting, but the next morning Jake tells him that the reason for his trip is not to go down the memory lane of their friendship.” The storyline harbours many possibilities. Could it be a reflective film that looks back to the past of the pair’s relationship as younger men (and could that explain Manu’s casting)? Could it be that this meeting is the rekindling of an old kind of love? After all, the film’s title is lifted from an old fado by Amalia Rodrigues about lost love.
After scaring off Hollywood with his super gay vision for ‘Brokeback Mountain’, Pedro’s own cowboy movie ‘Strange Way of Life’ is on the way.
Shooting for the 30-minute-long Western has begun to take place this month in southern Spain. The short film also stars José Condessa, Jason Fernández, Sara Sálamo, Erenice Lohan, Pedro Casablanc, and George Steane.
New photos have surfaced from the set of “Strange Way of Life”, Academy Award-winning director Pedro Almodóvar’s upcoming English language short film. The images showcase the stars of the film, Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, in their western costumes. Strange Way of Life follows Jake (Hawke) and Silva (Pascal), retired gunslingers and old pals who meet each other again after over two decades apart. However, it gradually becomes apparent that their reunion is no mere happenstance or strictly between two friends.
The film is titled after a traditional Portuguese fado song by late fado icon Amália Rodrigues, which will also be the soundtrack that opens the movie. Referring to Rodrigues’s songs to IndieWire, Almodóvar said: “Those songs are all very sad and that is how these two main characters live.” However, sadness is not present in Almodóvar, Hawke, or Pascal’s expressions as they pose together in a photo taken by Iglesias Más on the set for the film. From the costumes, Hawke’s Jake appears to be the wealthier, more aristocratic of the two while Pascal’s Silva is dressed in a more casual checkered shirt. The costumes are designed by Saint Laurent’s head designer Anthony Vaccarello.
Shooting for the 30-minute-long Western has begun to take place this month in southern Spain. The short film also stars José Condessa, Jason Fernández, Sara Sálamo, Erenice Lohan, Pedro Casablanc, and George Steane.
Strange Way of Life has no set release date, but we expect somewhere in the Spring 2023. Pedro famously has a strong connection to starry festivals like Cannes Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival. So keep an eye on both.
