Great father and terrible waiter. 10 facts about Pedro Pascal (11 photos + 1 video)

He shone with charisma in Game of Thrones, conquered planets in The Mandalorian and earned the status of father of the year in The Last of Us.





Chilean migrant



Pedro Pascal was born on April 2, 1975 in the Chilean capital of Santiago. True, the future actor lived there for only a few months, after which his family moved to Denmark.

Later they moved to the American city of San Antonio, and then to California, where they received political asylum.

Changed his last name to honor his mother





When Pedro Pascal was living in New York and trying to start an acting career, his mother, a child psychologist, died. This was a great loss for Pedro:

“She was always very supportive of me and never acted like a stage mother. I always felt like she knew something that I didn't know. I couldn't have achieved anything without her."

In memory of his mother, Pedro changed his surname, inherited from his father - Balmaceda - to Pascal, which was his mother's.

Was a professional swimmer



Pascal was an outstanding competitive swimmer in his youth and even competed in the Texas Regionals when he was 11 years old. Later, as a teenager, he gave up the sport to pursue an acting career.

Pascal was once asked if he would like to take up swimming professionally again in the near future. He answered briefly:

"I am too lazy".

He was fired from his job as a waiter 10 times



At first, Pedro’s acting career brought him too little money, so at the same time he worked as a waiter. True, according to the actor himself, he coped monstrously poorly with his duties:

“I would say I was not a good waiter. For so many reasons. If I liked you, then I liked you. If not, no. And this approach did not go well with a large number of clients. I was fired often—probably about ten times.”

Became an actor thanks to books



Pedro Pascal managed to find his calling in life thanks to a related art form - literature.

He developed an early love for reading through classics like The Graduate and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Gradually, he began to read plays more and more often and thereby developed a liking for the theater.

Longtime friend of Oscar Isaac



Pascal and Isaac met through a theater production in which they were paid $500 a week. Oscar Isaac spoke about those times in an interview:

“My dream was to be able to pay rent. We didn't have a plan. We were just trying to get by. The question was how can we do something we love that doesn’t support us at all.”

Since then, the actors have developed a strong friendship - they still sometimes celebrate the New Year together.

He's a big Nicolas Cage fan



Pascal clearly names Nicolas Cage as his most influential idol among actors.

“I'm his biggest fan. I realized quite early that I wanted to become an actor. I had this fantasy because we often went to the cinema with the whole family. As a child, it was his acting that I remember most.”

Recently, Pascal finally fulfilled his dream and starred with Cage in the film “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.”

He is often replaced on the set of The Mandalorian



One of the biggest chapters in Pedro Pascal's career is the Star Wars series The Mandalorian. In it, Pedro plays a fearless mercenary whose customs prohibit him from taking off his helmet often.

This is, of course, a very convenient convention for using doubles and doubles when the need arises. And fans who assumed that the title character is not always played by Pascal himself turned out to be right.

Bryce Dallas Howard was called to direct the fourth episode of the first season. She later said that she never had a chance to work with Pascal on the set - stunt double Brendan Wayne acted in his place for the entire episode.

“Pascal auditioned for King Lear on Broadway, so when we filmed my episode, I didn’t work with him.”

Played The Last of Us despite an outright ban



The recent series The Last of Us, an adaptation of the best-selling gaming series The Last of Us, became a major hit and a contender for the title of show of the year.

Its creators took the project extremely seriously: showrunner Craig Mazin, according to rumors, even forbade the actors from playing the original game until filming was completed.

But Pascal admitted that he still played The Last of Us, although he abandoned the playthrough when he got stuck at a certain point.

“My nephews watched me play but eventually got tired of my inability to complete the level, so they took the controller away.”

Eternal screen father



Fans of Pascal have recently increasingly noticed that Pedro has developed a single on-screen role as a caring father. This has become the subject of numerous jokes - the actor himself admits that he surprisingly often becomes an “on-screen father figure.”

Father Pascal's track record already includes: Din Djarin from The Mandalorian, Maxwell Lord from Wonder Woman 1984, and Joel Miller from The Last of Us.

Bonus: young Pedro Pascal in the TV series "NYPD Blue" in 2001