Spoilers for The Wire, Weeds, American Gods, Halo. Basically most of the TV shows Pablo Schreiber has even been in. And when I say “he’s been in” I mean he’s been in.
The first thing I’d like to make very clear is that this post has nothing to do with actor Pablo Schreiber’s actual personal life. I will not creep myself out enough to research who he may or may not be sleeping with (although I do know for a fact that he has two sons, but that’s mostly on him and his Instagram feed. I was only here for this…
…and some other things.) But being a fan of his body of work, I’ve noticed something that must be included in most of Schreiber’s contracts: his character is going to fuck.
Not that most actors haven’t taken a role with a sex scene or should have any reason to be averse to a sexually active character, but Schreiber seems to have an affinity for them. Especially an affinity for a character who bangs even when it leads to his inevitable downfall.
That’s right. Pablo fucks, and it fucks him up. Let’s take a look at his credits.
Nick Sobotka on The Wire
One of Schreiber’s earliest recognizable roles is in season two of The Best Show Ever aka The Wire. I don’t want to say that falling in love with his beautiful girlfriend and having a child fucked up Sobotka’s life, but his desire to support them did lead to him becoming more and more involved with the Russian mob and that’s gonna fuck up your life but good.
Demetri Ravitch on Weeds
The number one rule of Weeds is that you don’t fuck Nancy. And the second rule of Weeds is, you’ve already fucked Nancy, haven’t you? Weeds was presumably about a suburban housewife who turns to pot dealing after the death of her husband, but it became a study on how quickly you’d get murdered after sleeping with that suburban housewife. Schreiber showed up being vaguely Eastern European and boned Nancy almost right away. I assume he was killed, but honestly, the only thing I can really remember from the show is that Justin Kirk deserves a much bigger career than he has.
George ‘Pornstache’ Mendez on Orange Is The New Black
Don’t have that hair. Don’t have that facial hair. Don’t have sex with an inmate when you’re a prison guard because then you rightfully get fired and prosecuted.
Mad Sweeney on American Gods
Almost every time I talk about Pablo Schreiber, it’s because I want to talk about Mad Sweeney. American Gods, the Starz series based on the Neil Gaiman book of the same name, cast Schreiber as Mad Sweeney, an ancient warrior god-king who has, over the years, become a leprechaun (a notable downgrade, but still hot). Early in the first episode, Schreiber did this and I was changed.
You might assume that looking like that, he’d be plowing up and down the Mississippi and you’d be correct, but that’s not the doing it that does him in. See, he ends up working with the dead-but-reanimated wife of a business colleague of his, and they fall in love.
They fall in love, but won’t admit their feelings for each other until they have sex in a voodoo ceremony in New Orleans. You know, healthy like. As a direct result of their failed tryst, Sweeney returns to Cario, IL without her and is promptly murdered. Even though he is, as previously stated, an ancient warrior god-king. Fine. The reason I’m giving this level of background is that in the novel, the original source material, Sweeney and Laura Moon never even meet. Obviously Schreiber must have read the book and said, “I’ll do it. Now just change the story completely so I can die tragically after the physical act of love.”
Gregory Mars on The Good Wife
OK, absolutely true thing that happened: I completely forgot about an entire bone-and-down role that Schreiber did. On The Good Wife, he plays a first-year lawyer who represents and beds the wife of notorious Chicago crime and drug lord Lemond Bishop during their divorce. This doesn’t turn out super well for Ms. Bishop as evidenced by the photo above (she super dies), but probably also doesn’t turn out too well for Mr. Mars since he then accuses the drug kingpin publicly and is never seen or heard of again. Not on the remaining run of The Good Wife or the spin-off The Good Fight. I’m not saying that means he’s dead, but he’s definitely not alive.
John-117 From Halo
One, good lord, this man is attractive. Two, Master Chief from the Paramount+ series Halo might be the most a Schreiber character has had sex when, according to literally everything, he should absolutely not be having sex. For starters, in the game the show is based on, John never even takes off his helmet. This one.
I’m not saying you can’t get down with that helmet on, but it’s at least second-date stuff. In the series, not only does Schreiber insist on taking off the helmet, he insists on taking off the everything. It’s a good show. And because it’s a good show, I don’t want to go into too many details about when and how the busy happens except to say it’s again not in the source material. Also it actually doesn’t lead to the downfall of John specifically, but might, possibly, a little mean the downfall of all humankind. Oops.
So yes, Pablo Schreiber is willing to come through every time even when it costs his character dearly. His dedication to doing it is admirable, and you owe it to yourself and him to watch his glorious self-destruction in the form of intercourse. I’ve pretty much exhausted every euphemism I can think of to refer to coitus short of the dreaded “L” word, so let’s leave it at another picture of Schreiber’s beautiful face.
Holy shit! I forgot about Candy. Seriously, this guy never doesn’t fuck.
