NEW YORK: Pedro Pascal learned to play the cello for his starring role in upcoming film "Behemoth!" from Oscar-winning writer-director Tony Gilroy.

"I was so taken by what the story was and the... intimacy of all of it, in the way that I guess how intimate it can feel to listen to music and to be guided by music," the 51-year-old actor told an audience at a showing of the movie at the New York Film Festival on Friday.

Jumping between past and present, the film tells the story of Alex Serian, a cellist who moves to Los Angeles to care for his dying mother and escape an overbearing ex played by Olivia Wilde.

While there he joins an orchestra that performs film scores, and the music they play serves as a link for both Alex and the audience, connecting fragments from his past that appear to have overwhelmed him.