The Daily Show’s Lighting Designer Wins Pedro Pascal Lookalike Contest, To Jon Stewart’s Complete Delight

Screenshot via YouTube.

The Daily Show host Jon Stewart was absolutely stoked that his show’s lighting designer George Gountas won a Pedro Pascal lookalike contest.

Stewart interviewed his colleague during the “After The Cut” segment of his show, introducing the topic by mentioning other viral celebrity lookalike contests and then the Pascal one that was just held in New York City over the weekend.

The contest was “a big deal,” said Stewart, and even “more of a big deal, I think here at the show, because that Pedro Pascal is our lighting designer, George Gountas.”

Gountas came out on stage as the audience cheered and applauded.

“I’m going to tell you what’s crazy,” Stewart said to the still-cheering audience. “All right, so you’re looking at him right now and you’re thinking, “I wanna [beep] him — that’s what we’re all thinking.”

“Yeah!” called out an audience member.

“I’ve never noticed that he looks like Pedro Pascal,” admitted Stewart, cuing his producers to bring up a photo of what Gountas usually looks like.

Gountas explained how he had found out about the contest — the show’s stage manager Tyler Goldman, told him, “Yo, you should go win a year of free burritos” — and his wife encouraged him to enter.

He enlisted the help of his neighbor, a stylist, to more closely match the look of the Mandalorian and Last of Us star, with hairstyle, glasses, and clothing.

Stewart marveled at his coworker’s close resemblance to Pascal, and deemed him “a sexier, younger, Pedro Pascal.” (Gountas turns 43 next week; Pascal is 50.)

“Thank you,” replied Gountas. “That’s awfully kind, awfully kind.”

Stewart joked about the attention Gountas had been getting, describing the audience as reacting “animalistically,” and asked him to share the deal he had made with his wife.

“I’m cool with you getting all this attention,” Gountas said his wife told him, “if I can meet Pedro Pascal.”

Gountas and Stewart riffed for a bit about the show’s camera setup and Gountas looked directly into camera three and made his pitch.

“Hey, Pedro,” said Gountas. “This is Pedro Number Five from New York. It would be a great, great, great gift if you could meet my wife, Jenny. It would mean the world to her. We need to make this happen.”

“George, I don’t see how Pedro Number One could turn down Pedro Number Five,” said Stewart.

Watch the video above via The Daily Show.