Recently, a video of Pedro Pascal went viral. That’s not an unusual thing to happen, but in this one he was spotted at a movie theater loudly proclaiming, “I am a lazy, 50-year-old bougie bitch.”
The “bougie bitch” part of his exclamation was, without a doubt, the funniest part of the clip. But the words that stood out were “50-year-old.”
Because, yes, Pascal is 50 years old—and he’s embracing it with a sort of Sally O’Malley–like fervor. He’s 50! He’s gonna kick, stretch, be a lazy bougie bitch, and pretend to lick a glow stick at the Last of Us wrap party.
He’s also more visible than he’s ever been—and far from alone. Pascal is part of a current coterie of actors who have gotten famous later in life and are having more fun with that newfound celebrity than their greener counterparts. Pascal (who’s on the younger side of this group) is joined in this elite club by Colman Domingo, who, at 55 years old, has recently become a two-time Oscar nominee and red carpet icon. And there’s Walton Goggins, widely lusted after at 53 thanks to his turn on season three of The White Lotus, spreading a rollicking good time wherever he goes. In a way, we’re living in a golden age of newly famous 50-something male stars: unencumbered by the pressures that come with breakout stardom, they’re taking on the industry with a palpable delight that’s easy to cheer for.
Fame is experienced differently for these men than it is for the likes of, say, Timothée Chalamet or Austin Butler or anyone else who hits it big at 24. And it might be even better. (For what it’s worth, fame is also experienced differently for women—Hollywood is still regressive when it comes to gender and men are afforded far more opportunities to get famous later in life than women are.)
Pascal, Domingo, and Goggins arrived to fame having already established their sense of self, which means their public personas are fully developed. They have critical long-term support systems in place. They aren’t testing out identities, figuring out their personal taste, or hanging with the wrong crowd in public view. They’re just having a blast.
And, as spectators: We love watching them.
Why? For starters, it feels like they’ve earned it. All three of these men first paid their dues in the trenches of the acting business. For a long time, they weren’t leading men. They were working actors—the type of guys who are consistently on television and in film but are not the kind of people the general public knows by name. They were on a similar path to those with a normal non-entertainment career: You work hard and you eventually make good. Their fame is just a cherry on top.
Take Goggins, for instance. Goggins was nearly 40 when he got his first major role, in Justified, and then his rise was slow and steady. Those who knew his name loved him. Most just recognized his distinctive face and uniquely Southern voice.
