18 things we have learned about Pedro Pascal, the actor who plays Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones

THERE’S no Game of Thrones episode this week, and that’s a disaster. But fear not. The sultry, exotic sex god of Westeros is here to make you feel better. (Possible spoilers)

WARNING: Possible spoilers ahead.

We’re going through withdrawal this week.

It’s Memorial Day weekend in the United States, and that means we have to wait another seven days for the next Game of Thrones episode. The pain of it all is making Theon’s torture chamber from season three look like a massage parlour.

MORE: Review, Game of Thrones, episode seven

You can understand HBO’s reasoning. It aired the undeniably epic Blackwater episode on this day two years ago, and the ratings were awful. Nobody in the US is willing to watch TV on a public holiday.

Still, the delay has us feeling as deranged as Daenerys after a dragon heist. “Where is our Game of Thrones episode!?”

TITLE: WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS? SIZE: 650x366px CAPTION: She wants to know.

It’s OK. Don’t freak out. Because just as he decided to become Tyrion’s saviour on screen, Oberyn Martell has come from nowhere to make our extra week of torture that tiny bit more tolerable.

Pedro Pascal, the actor who plays Oberyn, has conducted an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit, fielding questions on everything from his favourite animal to his preparations for the coming zombie apocalypse.

We’ve read through the whole thread (such a chore) and picked out 18 fascinating things it taught us about the man behind Oberyn.

Is that a “come hither” look or an “I’m going to kill you” look? It’s hard to tell with this guy.

1. HE LOVES CAP’N CRUNCH CEREAL

“Someone asked how I feel about Captain Crunch. I’m capable of eating an entire box of it without any milk. It is a sweet taste that is indescribable. Captain Crunch is its own flavour.”

2. HE HAS BEEN CALLED “THE MEDITERRANEAN LIAM NEESON”

“I love it. I watched Liam Neeson in movies growing up, from High Spirits all the way to now, so it is a complete honour to be in the same sentence as him.”

3. HE’S A MASSIVE SCI-FI FAN

“OOOOH I have so many favourite science fiction films. I would say Alien and Aliens are two of my favourite sci-fi films. Also Children of Men would be one of my favourite science fiction films. I love the original Solaris and the remake. And even though it wasn’t a film, the series Battlestar Galactica was one of my favourite TV shows.”

4. HE HAS QUESTIONABLE TASTE IN SOCKS

“I’d say the easiest socks to wear would be black socks. And the most fun socks would be some sort of, you know, odd pattern of purple, aqua and green.”

“Bad taste in socks? I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

5. HE APPEARED IN BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

“My name was Eddie, and it was the first episode of season four of Buffy, and I am kind of her first friend in college, or she finally meets a nice person that’s in the same boat as her. And unfortunately, I am turned into a vampire by the head campus vampire, and Buffy is forced to kill her first college friend.”

6. ALSO, SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR PLIED HIM WITH ICE CREAM

“Sarah Michelle Gellar was very, very nice, and it was one of my first jobs, I was really excited about it, and she was very nice to me, she even brought me ice cream from her trailer.”

7. HE WOULD LIKE TO SEE TYRION ON THE IRON THRONE

“I think the most capable ruler of Westeros would be Tyrion Lannister. I wouldn’t want to put Arya there because it’s too dangerous a place, and I think that Tyrion is very cunning, very very intelligent, smarter than everyone in the room, smarter than everyone in any room that he is in.”

8. HE LOVES JUNK FOOD

“I am always struggling a little with trying to make sure I’m motivated to get my a** to the gym. I try to avoid junk food, although I do love me some really good junk food and I love candy bars. I’m a very sweet and savoury person, I love salty and I love sugary. But to be in a good mood, it’s helpful if you eat well.”

He’s a man of action.

11. HE THINKS HIS OWN CHARACTER IS SEXY

“I find him to be a very sexy person for a lot of different reasons. There’s so much about him and the richness of his character, because he is very dangerous, very sensual, but he’s also very intelligent, and a loyal person full of integrity and his loyalties go very, very deep.”

12. HE’S A BERRY FIEND

“My favourite fruit, I like berries ... They decorated my table at the Purple Wedding with a bowl of berries, and they kept on having to refill it because I was eating them. And the brothel had some nuts and berries, sort of decorated throughout the set, that’s why you keep seeing me eating in the scene.”

13. HE’S AN ADORABLE BOOK NERD

“I think one of the greatest reads I’ve ever experienced was Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky. I know that sounds highbrow, but to be completely honest it was a page turner for me. I also love One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And I love Jane Eyre, I love anything by J.D. Salinger, I love reading.”

14. ELEPHANTS FASCINATE HIM

“I’m just completely transfixed when I see one on television or at the zoo. I find them sort of magnificent, and humorous, and intelligent, and gentle, and dangerous, and I just think that they are incredible.”

“It’s the trunks. What’s going on there? Silly elephants.”

15. HE FILMED HIS BEST SCENE ON DAY ONE

“I think that my first day onset was actually a pretty big scene, this was my scene in Tyrion’s cell with Peter Dinklage, and it’s a beautifully written scene but it was really important to me to get it right. And I was really nervous. And it turned out not to be a difficult scene to shoot because Peter was so amazing to work with and he’s such a generous actor.”

16. HE IS NOT UTTERLY FEARLESS

“I suppose my worst nightmare would be to be buried alive. One of the worst things out of all of the many ways of killing a person in Game of Thrones, the one that terrified me the most was trapping a hungry rat and the only way that it could get out was to eat its way through a person’s heart.”

17. HE HAS THOUGHT ABOUT THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE AT GREAT LENGTH

“One of my favourite movies is 28 Days Later, and I used to think about this a lot after I watched that movie because I feel like it’s such a terrifyingly realistic possible circumstance, that a virus would turn these people into rabid zombies, so I kind of wondered often how I would survive. I might not last that long because I would probably sacrifice myself to save a family member or something like that.”

18. HIS FAVOURITE DISNEY FILM IS ‘DUMBO’

“As far as Disney, more of the classic animations, I would say my favourite Disney film is Dumbo. I like to cry, what can I say?”

Again with the elephants.

Are you an Oberyn fan? Of course you are. There’s no episode this week, so let’s talk about #GameOfThrones on Twitter: @SamClench | @newscomauHQ