Game of Thrones star Pedro Pascal on Narcos: Who needs dragons when you've got cocaine?

Westeros is not a million miles from Bogota according to the actor

Pedro Pascal as Javier Peña and Boyd Holbrook as Steve Murphy in the Netflix Original Series "Narcos." (Netflix)

Pedro Pascal, last seen as Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones, remarked of his new Netflix series Narcos: “We don’t need dragons, we got cocaine!”

The flippant comment was made during a recent interview in which Pascal suggested that the Jose Padilha-helmed series about a real-life drug baron is not a million miles from Westeros.

Never mind that it is set in 1980s Colombia and about mass murderer Pablo Escobar, Pascal claims that the real-life violence behind his latest role might well have inspired Game of Thrones.

Indira Varma with Pedro Pascal in 'Game of Thrones' (HBO)

“There’s the size of the story,” he told Winteriscoming.net. “Game of Thrones would take a lot of inspiration from the story of what went down in Colombia and the war that was fought.”

Game of Thrones, based on the novels of George RR Martin, features dragons, gratuitous violence and a lot of nudity but so far has remained free of drug-based storylines.

While Narcos is being hotly tipped as the most exciting series to hit Netflix since Breaking Bad, its executive producers might not be thrilled about Pascal’s light-hearted comment as they have been keen to stress the anti-drugs message at the heart of the drama.

“If you’re at a party and snort a gram of cocaine, look at how many people died [for it], how many lives were destroyed,” Jose Padilha told Deadline this week.

“The drug policy that we have in the US hasn’t worked in the last 30 years,” said Padilha, director of Elite Squad. “The Nancy Reagan ‘Just Say No’ approach doesn’t work.”

Criticisms levied at Narcos – which hits Netflix on 28 August with reviews embargoed until next week – include fears that it will glamorise Escobar who is believed to have killed hundreds and whose enormous wealth from his criminal activities led to his inclusion in the Forbes rich list.

Pascal plays a DEA agent who helps to bring Escobar down.