Pedro Pascal Biography: Bringing Depth in Every Role

José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal; (born April 2, 1975) is a Chilean and American actor. After nearly two decades of taking small roles on stage and television, Pascal had his breakout role as Oberyn Martell in the fourth season of the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones (2014). He gained further prominence with his portrayal of Javier Peña in the Netflix crime series Narcos (2015–2017). He went on to appear in the films The Great Wall (2016), Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), The Equalizer 2 (2018), and Triple Frontier (2019).

Pascal’s leading roles as Din Djarin in the Disney+ science fiction series The Mandalorian (2019–present) and Joel Miller in the HBO post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us (2023–present) propelled him to international stardom, earning him a reputation for portraying adoptive father figures. For the latter role, he received numerous accolades, including a Screen Actors Guild Award and a nomination for a Golden Globe Award. He took further parental roles in the films We Can Be Heroes (2020), Strange Way of Life (2023), and as Fink the fox in The Wild Robot (2024).

Pascal has also starred in Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022). Active in theatre since 1999, he made his Broadway debut as Edmund in a 2019 adaptation of King Lear. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023.

José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal was born on April 2, 1975, in Santiago, Chile to child psychologist Verónica Pascal Ureta and fertility doctor José Balmaceda Riera, a member of the Castilian-Basque aristocracy. His paternal grandmother was born in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. He has an older sister named Javiera, a younger brother named Nicolás, and a younger sister named Lux, who is an actress and transgender activist. Pascal’s mother was the cousin of Andrés Pascal Allende, the nephew of socialist Chilean President Salvador Allende (through his sister Laura). Pascal Allende was an early leader of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left, a militant far-left organization.

Nine months after his birth, his family sought refuge in the Venezuelan embassy in Santiago, and later received political asylum in Denmark. Ultimately, the family moved to the United States, where Pascal was raised in San Antonio, Texas, until they relocated to Orange County, California, when he was 11 years old. By the time he was eight years old, his family regularly visited Chile to see his 34 cousins. His parents would ultimately move back to Chile in 1995 to raise his two younger siblings.

He pursued acting at the Orange County School of the Arts and graduated in 1993, before attending New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he graduated in 1997. After his mother’s death, he began using her surname professionally as a tribute to her and because he felt that Americans had difficulty pronouncing his paternal surname, Balmaceda.

Early in his career, Pascal appeared in several television series, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, NYPD Blue, The Good Wife, Nurse Jackie, and Homeland. Pascal experienced hard times during that point in his career; besides working in small acting and theatre roles, he took jobs waiting at restaurants. Pascal admitted that he was fired “often, upwards of, I don’t know, maybe close to 10 times”. In times of extreme hardship, Pascal’s close friend Sarah Paulson would give him her per diem money “so that he could have money to feed himself.” At a point when he found difficulty in affording medical care, only having less than seven dollars in his bank account, he received a residual check from his role in Buffy, which helped him to restabilize his finances and allowed him to continue pursuing acting.

Pascal was a member of New York City’s LAByrinth Theater Company. He received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and Garland Award for his role in the International City Theater production of Orphans, and has performed in classical and contemporary works. In 2010, he wrote a play, directed by Sarah Silverman, Flaca Loves Bone, about four siblings who meet in a snowy wood to uncover a family secret. Also in 2010, Pascal made his directorial debut with Killing Play, written by David Anzuelo, at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. He also directed underneathmybed and Yosemite there. He was cast in the pilot for the 2011 Wonder Woman television adaptation as Ed Indelicato, Wonder Woman’s liaison to the LAPD, but the show was not picked up.

In 2014, Pascal portrayed the character Oberyn Martell in the fourth season of the HBO’s critically acclaimed television series Game of Thrones. The season aired from April 6 to June 15, 2014, and Pascal’s performance as the passionate and vengeful dornish prince garnered significant praise from both critics and audiences, with numerous publications, including CNET, Collider, The Mary Sue, Time, and Esquire naming Martell as one of the best characters in the show. The Los Angeles Times praised him as a sex symbol in the role, calling it “the real tipping point in his career”; MovieWeb assessed that his career “skyrocket[ed]” after playing Martell. Pascal stated that he was a huge fan of the show before being cast as Oberyn and was ecstatic to join. As part of the ensemble, he has received a Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

In the 2015 movie Bloodsucking Bastards, Pascal portrayed the vampire Max. In April 2015, Pascal co-starred with Heidi Klum in the music video for Sia’s “Fire Meet Gasoline“. In August 2015, Pascal gained further recognition for his portrayal as Javier Peña, based on a real-life DEA agent, in the popular Netflix crime drama series Narcos. The show’s two first seasons depict the rise and fall of the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar and the subsequent Medellín Cartel, as the show’s focus shifted to the Cali Cartel for its third and final season, Pascal took on the role of both lead actor and narrator.

In 2016, he portrayed mercenary Pero Tovar in the fantasy action film The Great Wall, alongside Matt Damon, and directed by Zhang Yimou. Set against the backdrop of the iconic Great Wall of China, the film follows European mercenaries who become embroiled in a battle against ancient creatures threatening humanity. Despite the film’s visually stunning production and ambitious scope, it received mixed reviews for its narrative and character development. Filmed on location in Qingdao, China. Pascal has voiced his admiration for Yimou, whom he had been a fan of during his youth.

Pascal at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con (Pedro Pascal Biography)

In 2017, Pascal portrayed the charismatic and skilled operative within the Statesman organization, Jack Daniels, also known as Agent Whiskey, in Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Writing for Collider, Chris Sasaguay called his character “one cool cowboy”, observing his “genuine love for getting into a cutthroat brawl”, and praising the “playful side that comes so easily to Pascal […] which isn’t lost in playing Whiskey, turning him into a worthy new character to stand beside the Kingsman agents”.

In 2018, he starred as Dave York, the main antagonist, in Denzel Washington’s thriller sequel film The Equalizer 2. In Prospect, Pascal portrayed the character Ezra, a seasoned and enigmatic prospector navigating a dangerous alien moon in search of valuable resources. CNET‘s Monisha Ravisetti was “delightfully surprised when Pedro Pascal showed up in a burnt orange spacesuit”, and Dais Johnston retroactively compared the role to Pascal’s future characters in The Mandalorian and The Last of Us, writing for Inverse, “Pedro Pascal plays a gruff man who only looks out for himself until a child softens his heart”. In 2018’s If Beale Street Could Talk, directed by Barry Jenkins and based on James Baldwin’s novel, Pascal made a cameo appearance as Pietro Alvarez, a frivolous yet crucial character who ultimately reveals a compassionate and empathetic side.

In February 2019, Pascal made his Broadway debut in an adaptation of King Lear with Glenda Jackson and Ruth Wilson, where he took on the role of Edmund, the cunning and ambitious illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester. Since 2019, Pascal has portrayed the title role in The Mandalorian, the first live-action Star Wars television series, which debuted on Disney+, the show follows the adventures of a lone bounty hunter in the outer reaches of the galaxy. The role brought Pascal much wider recognition, and would later help establish him for his portrayals of father figures. The same year, he starred as Francisco “Catfish” Morales in the Netflix heist drama Triple Frontier, in which he portrays a helicopter pilot.

Pascal in 2022

He portrayed Maxwell Lord in the DC Extended Universe film Wonder Woman 1984, directed by Patty Jenkins. Following delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film was released to theaters and HBO Max in December 2020. The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw called Pascal’s character “a version of Norman Vincent Peale, the positive-thinking guru who was such an influence on presidents Nixon and Trump”. The New York Times and the BBC both thought that Pascal was miscast for the role. In the film We Can Be Heroes, he played Marcus Moreno. Screen Rant commented on the paternal aspect of the character, “It certainly should be the case that Pascal’s fatherly role in a children’s movie portrays him as a truly loving and caring father, and that’s exactly what [the character] does”.

In early 2021, a video from a 2020 virtual play reading of I, My Ruination surfaced on multiple social media platforms of Pascal laughing hysterically then transitioning smoothly into crying. The video quickly became an internet meme, often being paired with the Beach House song “Space Song” to display themes of tragedy on social media.

In 2022, Pascal co-starred with Nicolas Cage in the action comedy film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. His performance was widely praised by critics. A scene in which Pascal’s character looks at a gruff and irritated Cage with a grin on his face while driving under the influence of LSD would spawn another internet meme on TikTok. It is commonly used humorously when two parties are in stark disagreement or conflict with each other over a topic in an exaggeratedly emotional fashion, and is paired with the 1969 Mama Cass song “Make Your Own Kind of Music”. Pascal also appeared in The Bubble, Judd Apatow’s satirical comedy exploring celebrity culture amidst the pandemic. Reviewing the film for The A.V. Club, Luke Y. Thompson called Pascal’s character Dieter Bravo a “womanizer”, and noted that the character’s “fake ‘ethnic’ accent skewers what he likely has to endure regularly”. Shot during the COVID-19 pandemic, the film portrays the protocols adopted during filming due to the event as “purposely a little off-center”. He starred in Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales series short film, directed by Janicza Bravo, titled House Comes With a Bird. In November, he signed with Creative Artists Agency.

In 2023, Pascal starred in the HBO’s highly anticipated television adaptation, The Last of Us, based on the critically acclaimed video game under the same title, created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. He took on the role of Joel Miller, a hardened survivor in a post-apocalyptic world, tasked with protecting a young girl named Ellie, played by Bella Ramsey. Pascal reportedly received $600,000 per episode. Empire‘s John Nugent and /Film‘s Valerie Ettenhofer praised Pascal’s performance as the best of his career, citing his ability to portray nuance and rare vulnerability. The characterization of the paternal dynamic in the role and the similarity of his character in The Mandalorian earned Pascal international recognition for portraying adoptive father figures. This massive surge in popularity led him to become dubbed “daddy” in internet culture. Around this time, Pascal became a prominent figure in meme culture, with several memes of him achieving viral status, including a meme from a clip of Pascal eating a sandwich during a guest episode of LADbible’s “Snack Wars” YouTube series in which he appeared with The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau. Several popular memes of Pascal were derived from The Last of Us episode “Kin”, such as one from a scene where Joel is portrayed as having a panic attack, and others relating to his character’s tendency to lean on furniture throughout the episode due to being in a constant state of fear.

In February 2023, he hosted a Saturday Night Live episode, with Coldplay as the musical guest. In April, he was added to the cast of Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls. In May, he co-starred in the short film Strange Way of Life alongside Ethan Hawke, directed by Pedro Almodóvar. He plays Silva, who reunites with Hawke’s Jake in the two’s older age. Pascal previously expressed his admiration for and desire to work with Almodóvar. Screen Rant noted it as another example of Pascal taking a role with the “dad” archetype. In June, Pascal was named by Carnegie Corporation of New York as an honoree of the Great Immigrants Award. In July, Pascal made history as the first Latino to receive three nominations in the same year for the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards. The nominations included Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal in The Last of Us, Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his guest-hosting role in an episode of Saturday Night Live, and Outstanding Narrator for his narration in Patagonia: Life on the Edge of the World.

In January 2024, he starred in Freaky Tales, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. In June, musician Omar Apollo released his second studio album, God Said No, where Pascal features on the penultimate track, “Pedro”, where he contributes a monologue about his heart being “shattered by something”. In the animated feature The Wild Robot, he portrayed Fink, a fox who plays a parental role to a goose named Brightbill alongside Lupita Nyong’o’s robot Roz. Screen Rant called it Pascal’s third-best dad role to date, citing the character’s guiding, protective role in helping to raise a gosling, Brightbill, with a robot named Roz.

Pascal will next star in Gladiator II, the upcoming sequel of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. He will also star in Celine Song’s Materialists, and portray Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025), a role he will reprise in Avengers: Doomsday (2026) and Avengers: Secret Wars (2027).

Personal life (Pedro Pascal Biography)

Pascal is fluent in both English and Spanish. He developed a close friendship with actress Sarah Paulson soon after moving to New York City in 1993.

Pascal is an advocate of LGBTQ+ rights and was supportive of his sister Lux Pascal when she came out as transgender. Lux said, “He has been an important part of this. He is also an artist and has been a guide. He was one of the first to give me the things that formed my identity.”

Pascal identifies as an agnostic and a progressive liberal. He endorsed leftist Gabriel Boric in the 2021 Chilean presidential election.

Beginning his career in 1996, Pascal’s highest rated film and television projects, according to the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, include: The Uninvited (2024), The Last of Us (2023–present), If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), Calls (2021), The Good Wife (2009–2011), The Mandalorian (2019–present), Prospect (2018), Narcos (2015–2017), Game of Thrones (2014), and Graceland (2013–2014).

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