Pedro Pascal:
All Hail the new King of Geek
By Kirsten Howard
Pedro Pascal has been on the edge of stardom for a while, but the last few years have finally paid off two decades worth of hard work.
Chilean-American actor Pedro Pascal has become that rare thing in Hollywood: an actor who “made it” in his 40s. But it’s not through lack of trying!
The 45-year-old has appeared in over fifty TV shows and films since the late '90s.
Those with a keen memory might even recall one of the actor’s early roles in Season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Buffy met Pascal’s character Eddie when she first arrived at college, and they became fast friends before he was suddenly turned into a vampire.
Pascal’s breakout role came along much later, when he was cast as Oberyn Martell in HBO’s flagship fantasy series Game of Thrones in 2014.
Thanks to his "fan favorite" status during his Game of Thrones run, he landed the lead in Netflix’s cult crime drama, Narcos.
The first two seasons of Narcos were based on the story of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, and Pascal played Javier Peña, a DEA agent tasked with bringing down Escobar for good.
It seemed like Pascal’s career was finally taking off.
He had spent so many years slogging through the disappointments of the Hollywood machine, during which he became best friends with fellow struggling actor, Oscar Isaac.
Neither man knew they were both destined to hit the big time and join the same huge Disney-Lucasfilm franchise in the future—Star Wars.
The Mandalorian showrunner Jon Favreau cast Pascal as the central character of his hit live-action Star Wars series in 2018, saying he came across as a “classic movie star."
In The Mandalorian, Pascal stars as lone bounty hunter Din Djarin, who becomes an adoptive father to a Child in grave danger. Pascal says he knew the show would be ‘the next big thing’ from the outset.
Pascal’s face is rarely seen on camera, though, as his character always wears a distinctive helmet as part of his Mandalorian creed.
The beloved actor also plays villain Maxwell Lord in DC’s big budget comic book sequel, Wonder Woman 1984.
It’s not his first brush with Wonder Woman, as he was originally cast in a failed TV pilot that hoped to follow the iconic superhero’s adventures back in 2011!
Pascal is set to return to The Mandalorian for a third season, but he will also appear alongside Nicolas Cage in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, a meta film where Nic Cage plays Nic Cage in a fictional story about Nic Cage - sounds suitably wild!