Hollywood Heartthrob, 50, Reacts to Fans Saying He’s Too Old for Buzzy New Role

Hollywood Heartthrob, 50, Reacts to Fans Saying He’s Too Old for Buzzy New Role originally appeared on Parade.

Pedro Pascal has plenty of thoughts about the age-shaming controversy surrounding his casting in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

While speaking to AP News during a fan event in London, the actor, 50, addressed the backlash to his role as Reed Richards (a.k.a. Mister Fantastic) after some fans claimed he was too old to play the superhero character.

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“I think that sometimes the outside will find you no matter how much you try to protect yourself from it, and it just comes with the territory,” he said. “I think maybe my nerves were bigger than they usually are, and so I think I just was a little bit more sensitive to the love that people have for stories like this because I know that they wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the love that people have for these characters.”

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Pascal hoped that fans would ultimately be satisfied with his performance.

“I think that it’s very important for me that expectations be fulfilled,” he continued. “But I also know that the only way to do that is to give it all my focus and all my heart and my body and my soul, and so that was the best I could do.”

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The Fantastic Four: First Steps — which will be released in theaters on Friday, July 25 — stars Pascal as the scientist and inventor who becomes a superhero alongside Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn’s Johnny Storm/The Human Torch and Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s Ben Grimm/The Thing.

Three actors have portrayed Reed Richards in past films. Ioan Gruffudd played the character in 2005’s Fantastic Four and 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, while Miles Teller took over as Reed in the 2015 reboot Fantastic Four. John Krasinski later made a cameo as Mister Fantastic in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Pascal is the oldest person to take on the role yet, with Gruffudd, Teller and Krasinski embodying the character when they were 31, 28 and 42, respectively.

Hollywood Heartthrob, 50, Reacts to Fans Saying He’s Too Old for Buzzy New Role first appeared on Parade on Jul 11, 2025

This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 11, 2025, where it first appeared.