Pascal, Pedro

A Chilean-American actor, José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal was born on April 2, 1975. Pascal shot to fame as Oberyn Martell in the fourth season of the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones (2014) and as Javier Pea in the Netflix crime series Narcos (2015-2017), after nearly two decades of bit parts in film and television. Starting in 2019, he has played the title role in Disney's Star Wars series The Mandalorian, and beginning in 2023, he has played Joel in HBO's drama series The Last of Us. In the prequel series The Book of Boba Fett (2022), he also played a Mandalorian.

Pascal has acted in a number of feature films outside of television, including: The Adjustment Bureau (2011), The Great Wall (2016), Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), The Equalizer 2 (2018), Triple Frontier (2019), Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022).

Early life [ edit ]

José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal, son of child psychologist Verónica Pascal Ureta and fertility doctor José Balmaceda Riera, was born on April 2, 1975 [1] in Santiago. He has Basque[4] and Spanish[2] ancestry, [2][3] respectively. His older sister's name is Javiera, his brother's is Nicolás, and his other sister, Lux, is an actress and transgender activist. Andres Pascal Allende, the socialist president of Chile, was a nephew of his mother's (through Salvador Allende's sister Laura) and his mother's cousin. [7][8] Andrés was a pioneering figure in the urban guerrilla movement dedicated to toppling Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship. [9]

Pascal claims his parents were committed Allende supporters and members of underground movements fighting the Pinochet regime. For this reason, nine months after he was born, his family sought refuge in the Venezuelan embassy in Santiago and were eventually granted political asylum in Denmark. Pascal was raised in Orange County, California, and San Antonio, Texas, after his family emigrated to the United States ([11][12]). By the time he was eight, he and his family were making frequent trips to Chile to see his 34 cousins. [14]

As a young boy, Pascal swam competitively, even qualifying for the Texas state championships at age 11. However, he eventually gave up swimming competitively to focus on acting. At Orange County School of the Arts, he majored in acting and graduated in 1993; later, at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, he earned his degree in 1997. A federal grand jury indicted his father and two uncles in 1995 for their roles in a fertility clinic scandal. [12][15] Pascal claims his dad didn't do anything wrong, so he, his mom, and his two youngest siblings all moved back to Chile. His mother committed suicide in 1999, [17][18]. Following her passing, he began professionally going by her maiden name [3][19] in tribute to her and because he claimed that Americans had trouble pronouncing the surname Balmaceda. [11][14]

Career [ edit ]

In addition to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Pascal's TV credits also include The Good Wife, Homeland, The Mentalist, and Graceland. As kidnapper Reggie in "Weeping Willow" from Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and as Special Agent Greer in "Smoked" from Law & Order: SVU, [20] he has appeared on both shows. He played Steve Trevor in the Wonder Woman TV pilot that was shot in 2011[21] but ultimately didn't go anywhere. He started playing Oberyn Martell on Season 4 of Game of Thrones on HBO in June of 2013. Before being cast as Oberyn, Pascal said he was already a huge fan of Game of Thrones and couldn't wait to be a part of the cast. U was played by Pascal in a 2015 film. S Narcos' Javier Pea, a DEA agent, is featured in the popular streaming service's original series. Pascal played vampire Max in the 2015 film Bloodsucking Bastards. [23]

Both as an actor and a director, Pascal has a wealth of experience on stage. He won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and the Garland Award for his performance in Orphans at the International City Theater. He has performed off-Broadway in works by Jordan Harrison's Maple and Vine, Nilo Cruz's Beauty of the Father, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Based on a Totally True Story, Trista Baldwin's Sand, David Greenspan's Old Comedy, Terrence McNally's Some Men, and Shakespeare in the Park's 2006 Macbeth. [24] He is a part of the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York City. Pascal's Broadway debut came in February of 2019 alongside Glenda Jackson and Ruth Wilson in a production of King Lear. [26]

Pascal appeared alongside Heidi Klum in the music video for Sia's "Fire Meet Gasoline," released in April of 2015. In 2017, he portrayed Agent Whiskey in Matthew Vaughn's Kingsman: The Golden Circle and Pero[28] Tovar, a mercenary, in The Great Wall. Pascal appeared alongside Denzel Washington and others in the 2018 action thriller The Equalizer 2, in which he played the film's main antagonist, Dave York. [30]

Pascal has played the lead role in the first live-action Star Wars TV series, The Mandalorian, which premiered on Disney in 2019. That same year, he also starred as Francisco "Catfish" Morales in the Netflix heist drama Triple Frontier. As Maxwell Lord, he appeared in Patty Jenkins' 1984 Wonder Woman film as part of the DCEU. The film finally premiered in theaters and on HBO Max on December 25, 2020, after being delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. [33][34]

Pascal was chosen to star in The Bubble, a film by Judd Apatow, in February 2021. On April 1, 2022, the film made its debut on Netflix. Pascal starred alongside Nicolas Cage in the SXSW 2022 premiere comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Pascal will play Joel Miller in the HBO film adaptation of The Last of Us, which was announced in February 2021. According to reports [37], Pascal will earn 0,000 per episode. Freaky Tales, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, cast him in a role that November 2022. [39]

Family and friends [ edit ]

Pascal can speak two languages comfortably: English and Spanish Since 1993, he has made New York City his home. Oscar Isaac, a native of Guatemala, and Sarah Paulson, an American actress, are two of his closest friends, [12]. [41][42]

On the topic of LGBTQ equality, Pascal is a vocal supporter. When his sister Lux Pascal came out as transgender, he was there to support her. His sister later remarked, "He has been an important part of this." He has been a mentor and an artist. A lot of the things that made me who I am today came from him. "[44]

Both an agnostic[45] and a liberal, Pascal has described himself as such. [46] He backed Gabriel Boric for president of Chile in 2021. [47]

Filmography [ edit ]

Film [ edit ]

Television [ edit ]

To that end, music videos [ edit ]

Atari 2600 [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Linked external resources [ edit ]

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