Pedro Pascal saves Todd Haynes’ gay romance after Joaquin Phoenix exit

Phoenix reportedly quit project five days before filming was set to begin in 2014

Pedro Pascal has officially joined Todd Haynes’ De Noche, over a year after Joaquin Phoenix reportedly got “cold feet” and exited the gay romance.

Five days before production was scheduled to begin in 2024, Phoenix dropped out of the then-untitled detective love story. Entire sets had been built in Guadalajara, Mexico, where shooting was due to take place. Phoenix abandoned the project just days before the scheduled shoot in early July, leaving cast and crew in the lurch.

A source told Variety, the Joker star made the last-minute decision after getting “cold feet”. At the time, the decision led to a “huge amount of outrage”, an executive told The Hollywood Reporter.

On his exit from De Noche, Phoenix said at the Joker: Folie à Deux press conference in 2024: “I think, if I do, I‘d just be sharing my opinion from my perspective and the other creatives aren’t here to say their piece, and I just don’t feel like that would be right. I’m not sure how that would be helpful. So, I just don’t think I will.”

De Noche’s new production company, MK2 Films, confirmed on Wednesday that Pascal had joined the cast, and would be starring opposite Top Gun: Maverick’s Danny Ramirez, according to Variety, which first reported the news.

Pascal also confirmed the news on Instagram, with a post containing a carousel of photos from Haynes’ films and a photo of him with Ramirez.

The film is set to begin shooting next month. This will be Pascal’s third collaboration with Ramirez, having worked with him on the second season of HBO’s The Last of Us, and forthcoming Marvel film Avengers: Doomsday.

“This story, with Pedro Pascal and Danny Ramirez in the two leads, arises out of an era – all too relevant to our own – of domestic corruption, racial exploitation and global terror,” Haynes told Variety. “But it emerges as a testament to the inexplicable powers of desire and love to survive and overcome even the most crippling of human barriers.”

Pedro Pascal joins the cast Todd Haynes’ ‘De Noche’ to star opposite Danny Ramirez (Getty)

The film follows an unexpected romance between a detective (Pascal) and a boarding school teacher (Ramirez) in 1930s Los Angeles who are forced by circumstances to flee to Mexico.

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Haynes, best known for helming queer movies like the Oscar-nominated Carol (2015) and May December (2023), first teased the project in a 2023 interview with Variety.

He described it as “a love story between two men set in the ’30s that has explicit sexual content”.

Phoenix had originally worked on the screenplay with Haynes and the director’s longtime collaborator Jon Raymond. Haynes had described it as an “original script that I developed with Joaquin Phoenix based on some thoughts and ideas he brought to me”.

Pedro Pascal, left, director Ari Aster and Joaquin Phoenix, right, at the photo call for 'Eddington' at the 78th international film festival in Cannes (2025 Invision)

Haynes added that the movie – which was set to be rated NC-17 (the highest MPA rating given to films containing material inappropriate for children under 17) – was going to feature a relationship that “challenges” audiences.

“[Phoenix] had fragments of ideas and then I started to formulate them into an actual narrative,” Haynes told the outlet, adding that “Joaquin was pushing it further into more dangerous territory, sexually.”

The Oscar-winning actor is known to be anxious in the run-up to a movie, with THR reporting that Phoenix nearly dropped out of the 2023 biopic Napoleon, insisting that his trusted The Master filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson be brought on board to do rewrites.

MK2 Films will produce De Noche along with Killer Films, Paloma Negra Films, and Jonathan Montepare and Steven Demmler, in association with Cinetic Media.

“Few filmmakers connect with audiences as strongly as Todd Haynes,” said Fionnuala Jamison, managing director of MK2 Films. “De Noche carries that same power, and with Killer Films and a remarkable cast led by Pedro Pascal, it is a stand-out project we are proud to be a part of and share with buyers.”