{"id":487444,"date":"2026-05-16T08:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T08:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487444\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T08:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T08:51:11","slug":"from-game-of-thrones-to-star-wars-pedro-pascals-slow-road-to-the-hollywood-blockbuster-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487444\/","title":{"rendered":"From Game of Thrones to Star Wars: Pedro Pascal\u2019s slow road to the Hollywood blockbuster \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pedro Pascal<\/a> is in full promotional mood for the latest Star Wars<\/a> movie. You know how this goes. Talk about your earliest experiences with the franchise. Why is it still relevant? Who would you like to have played in the opening trilogy?<\/p>\n

The Chile<\/a>-born actor, long resident in the United States, has, since his belated emergence into stardom, always been a model of diplomacy. He wins friends. He charms the staff. He is not going to claim he could do better than, say, Peter Mayhew in the role of Chewbacca.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, no. I wouldn\u2019t dare touch any of those guys,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause they were already so brilliant. I can\u2019t mess with that. But remember the first film, Star Wars: A New Hope. I\u2019d like to be the guy who gets choked out by Darth Vader. You know? The very first time you see the Force get used? I\u2019d like to do that. I\u2019d like to die. Ha ha!\u201d<\/p>\n

We have convened for the arrival of the big-screen version of the hit TV series The Mandalorian<\/a>. Largely hidden behind a metallic helmet, Pascal plays a lone bounty hunter galactically adrift in the years after Return of the Jedi. <\/p>\n

Star Wars is now beyond an industry. Last time I checked, there were 12 theatrically released films and 10 series (some live, some animated). If you can tell your Skeleton Crew from your Ahsoka from your Acolyte, then the arrival of The Mandalorian and Grogu will be an undiluted treat.<\/p>\n

Launched in 2019, the series confirmed that Star Wars could thrive on the small screen. It cleverly retooled the conventions of the western, notably those by Sergio Leone, to the demands of space opera. <\/p>\n

Pascal\u2019s performance was a notable asset. The appearance of Grogu, a baby of the same species as Yoda, then generated a Milky Way of memes that kept the series to the front of a million minds. Din Djarin, Pascal\u2019s character, is dispatched, by the remnants of the rump Empire, to retrieve \u201cbaby Yoda\u201d for their own ends, but he ends up taking the green cutie into his care.<\/p>\n

The fans like them both. The fans will not be resisted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat jumps out at me the most is when people dress up in these incredible costumes, and you get reminded about all of the world-building that is Star Wars,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd of all of the different cultures that are in Star Wars storytelling. That\u2019s the biggest thing. Because you see the good guys, the bad guys and everything in between with the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than a few cynics have wondered how much of the series\u2019 success is down to Pascal\u2019s presence. After all, his face is barely visible for large parts of the drama. Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, stunt doubles, take many of the bruises during the endless action sequences. <\/p>\n

But the rumbling voice is unmistakable and, in the new film, Pascal, often unmasked, gets to spread his enviable charisma about large swathes of the fictional universe. He is a star of the venerable school: suave, charming, ironic. They were supposed to have stopped making this model some time in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

Pascal has had a singular career. Plenty of stars have taken a good while to hit it big. But few, like him, had to wait for proper middle age to get their name near the title. He was indeed pushing 40 when he secured the eye-catching role of Oberyn Martell in the fourth series of Game of Thrones<\/a>. \u201cIn my 30s I was supposed to have a career,\u201d he told Vanity Fair last year. \u201cPast 29 without a career meant that it was over, definitely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pascal had spent aeons working at bars and restaurants in New York City. He credited his dog, Gretta \u2013 always at home, waiting \u2013 with giving him a reason to keep plugging at a business that didn\u2019t seem to want what he was selling. He toyed with becoming a nurse. He thought about teaching acting. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Mandalorian: Wacky casting, imploding ratings, tumbling appeal. What\u2019s gone wrong with the Star Wars spin-off?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The actor Sarah Paulson<\/a>, a great friend of his, remembered him struggling to survive. \u201cHe\u2019s talked about this publicly,\u201d she said. \u201cBut there were times when I would give him my per diem\u201d \u2013 the daily expenses allowance that many productions provide \u2013 \u201cfrom a job I was working on, so that he could have money to feed himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

What happened after the Game of Thrones breakthrough was not typical of Hollywood either. What may not be immediately obvious to the casual fan is that, despite enormous fame and great admiration, Pascal did not immediately become a leading man. (Indeed, he is barely one now.)<\/p>\n

\"PedroPedro Pascal as the Mandalorian. Photograph: Lucas Film <\/p>\n

He was part of an ensemble in the popular Netflix<\/a> series Narcos<\/a> and in Marvel\u2019s The Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/a>. He added glamorous support in Wonder Woman 1984<\/a>, Gladiator II<\/a> and Materialists<\/a>. He counts, with Bella Ramsay, as one of the leads of the series The Last of Us<\/a>, but we are still waiting to see a film structured around his stardom (and not IP such as Star Wars). <\/p>\n

How often does someone over 50 manage that for the first time?<\/p>\n

\u201cStepping into it at my age, it\u2019s hard for me to …\u201d he puzzled to Vanity Fair. \u201cI ask myself, \u2018Is that realistic?\u2019\u2026 I can\u2019t believe how ageist my interview is going to be, but it\u2019s what I\u2019m living!\u201d<\/p>\n

Pascal was born in Santiago to a child-psychologist mother and a reproductive-endocrinologist father. The family history is wound in with a host of Chilean dynasties. The actor is great-nephew of Laura Allende, prominent politician and sister of Salvador Allende<\/a>, president of Chile until his death (by suicide, apparently) during the notorious coup of 1973. <\/p>\n

The arrival of the autocratic Augusto Pinochet<\/a> to the premiership saw both Pascal\u2019s parents being labelled enemies of the state. The family fled Chile for Denmark and then San Antonio, in Texas. They eventually settled in the none-more-Californian grids of Orange County, in greater Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Pascal has mixed feelings about those years. Even now, deep into middle age, he radiates a slight delicacy, a visible sensitivity. That did not go down well in the SoCal suburbs, and he was bullied \u201cfor being in love with the movies and theatre and art\u201d. <\/p>\n

\n

\u2018I just know that personal relationships are such a complex thing to navigate even without having this enormous lens on them\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Pedro Pascal on fame<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He looks to have been saved by his mother\u2019s decision to move him to a local school for the arts, but he remembers, even in his late teens, finding it difficult to chill. He struggled with insomnia. He was plagued by the wider injustices of life.<\/p>\n

Still, he made it to New York University\u2019s Tisch school of the arts and became friends with graduates of Fiorello H LaGuardia High School, the performing-arts institution in the city that inspired the film Fame. \u201cI got an entire New York family through them,\u201d he told Esquire magazine in 2023. \u201cTo the point where they still forget I didn\u2019t actually go to high school with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paulson was among them. \u201cWe would go to see movies all the time in those years, and we would get so lost in them,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can fill in the blanks about the why of that however you like, but I think there were things we wanted to escape mentally, emotionally, spiritually.\u201d<\/p>\n

It sounds like an agreeable Bohemian life. The sort of existence celebrated in the sentimental musical Rent. But nobody gets into that milieu without a nagging spark of ambition. However much fun it may be to knock about the dusty bars, everyone has dreams of escape to renown. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Star Wars: The Mandalorian is just a spaghetti western in spaceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In 1999, like many others in that position, Pascal eventually lunged towards Los Angeles. While he was pottering his way through smaller parts on TV, news arrived, from Chile, that his mother had died by suicide. From this point on he took to using Pascal, his mother\u2019s family name, as his stage name. He remembered, much later, still talking to her at times of stress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love you. I miss you,\u201d he would say. \u201cThank you. I\u2019m scared. I would love it if you would help me believe in myself, because I know you do. You know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PedroPedro Pascal radiates a slight delicacy, a visible sensitivity. Photograph: Dominique Charriau\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

That story does get across the sense of how hard it must have been to maintain belief in himself over all those years. He soon swivelled on his heel and headed back to New York for another decade of only occasionally fruitful toil. Then, suddenly, he was right there. Unavoidable. But where is there? Is he a character actor. Is he an off-centre leading man?<\/p>\n

Craig Mazin, the creator of the popular postapocalyptic drama The Last of Us, has an interesting take. \u201cI\u2019ve always said there are two kinds of actors. There are actors you feel slightly intimidated by, and then there are actors you want to take home and hug and give some soup,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd he\u2019s both. Somehow he\u2019s both.\u201d<\/p>\n

There remains a mystery to Pascal. Much speculation has surrounded his unwillingness to say anything about rumoured romantic associations. \u201cI just know that personal relationships are such a complex thing to navigate even without having this enormous lens on them,\u201d he has said. <\/p>\n

Yet nobody could call him unapproachable. Dressed today in red shirt and purple bow-tie, he literally curls up with laughter, clutches his belly and scrunches his eyes when his costar Sigourney Weaver<\/a> makes a funny remark.<\/p>\n

And he works. Nobody could fault him for the energy he is putting behind The Mandalorian. Why not? After all that struggle, his character is finally in the title of a summer blockbuster.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the longest I\u2019ve gotten to play a character,\u201d he says. \u201cThat it should be Star Wars is very fitting, because I grew up watching Star Wars. My earliest memories of going to the cinema is to see Star Wars. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an embarrassment of gifts for many, many reasons to be associated with something as special as this.\u201d<\/p>\n

He deserves the break.<\/p>\n

The Mandalorian and Grogu is in cinemas from Friday, May 22nd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pedro Pascal is in full promotional mood for the latest Star Wars movie. You know how this goes.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[132463,19500,18,117,1440,19,17,327,127,12126,212771,14466,38235,8127,42320],"class_list":{"0":"post-487444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-augusto-pinochet","9":"tag-chile","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-game-of-thrones","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-netflix","17":"tag-pedro-pascal","18":"tag-salvador-allende","19":"tag-sarah-paulson","20":"tag-sigourney-weaver","21":"tag-star-wars","22":"tag-the-mandalorian"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116583405199142044","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}