Pedro Pascal is everywhere right now—The Last of Us, The Mandalorian, The Fantastic Four, even Avengers: Doomsday. But the 50-year-old, crowned the internet’s favourite Zaddy, didn’t land here easily. His rise came late, after years of rejection, losing his mother to suicide, nearly quitting acting, and being broke in New York. Now, with the world watching, Pedro has a very different view of fame. In a new interview with Vanity Fair cover, he flipped through the darkest chapters of his past.
Pedro Pascal recalls being abused and bullied in high school
He was born in Chile, but he was just nine months old when his family fled the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship and moved to Texas. His mother, Veronica, was only 22, raising kids while also studying child psychology. Meanwhile, his dad was a fertility doctor. Since childhood, Pedro was obsessed with films, he used to scream, “A movie is coming!” every time HBO’s intro music played. When he was in middle school, his family moved to Orange County, California. But the actor says his life there took a turn for the worse; he was constantly bullied for being “weird and sensitive,” for being different from others, and for his love for theatre. It got so bad that his mom found him another school for the arts. He says he doesn’t know if he “would have survived the bullying if my mom hadn’t pulled me out.”
While battling abuse, the movie Gorillas in the Mist became his escape, he kept watching it again and again in theatres. After he moved out, his life changed, but he then fell for drugs. Pedro got his driver’s license early, took his mom’s Volvo, and with his best friend Grace, they’d drive to LA all night. At 16, he said, “Drugs were everywhere.” He recalled tripping on acid, calling his mom to say he was staying out, and all she said was, “Oh. I just thought we could all go see a movie.” But it was his love for his mom that made him rush back home, still hungover, and sit silently beside her at the theatre.
Pedro Pascal nearly became a nurse
While the Materialists actor admitted he would have been a “terrible” nurse if he had gone for that profession, he said he was seriously considering the option, given how badly he struggled to find acting roles. “In my 30s, I was supposed to have a career,” he told Vanity Fair. “Past 29 without a career meant that it was over, definitely.” However, his friends, family, and especially his sister, encouraged him to keep chasing his dreams, because they believed in his uniqueness. “When Pedro would say, ‘I’m going to nursing school’ or ‘I’m going to be a theatre teacher,’ it was just like ‘No, no, no, no! You’re too good!” Pedro’s older sister, Javiera Balmaceda, who now works as a producer at Amazon Studios, said. “He’s wanted to be an actor since he was four years old. The one thing we’d never allow Pedro to do was give up.” And Pedro couldn’t agree more. He said he would’ve been a terrible fit for the job: “I’d be a selective nurse, like I was as a waiter,” he said. “I’d fall in love with some patients and hate others. And that poor patient that I hated!”
Pedro studied acting at NYU in New York and immediately found his friend group in actors like Sarah Paulson, who called him “sad but magnetic.” Pedro dealt with insomnia and overwhelming thoughts about how life was unfair for a huge chunk of his life. He read James Baldwin and cried at movies like Muriel’s Wedding and Once Were Warriors. His career hadn’t even started when he lost his mother to suicide. He laughed at himself for once thinking an audition for Dark Angel was important. “You think not getting a job can break me? I’m already broken.” To cope, he adopted a rescue dog named Gretta. Pedro said criticism still scares him, with fans questioning, “He’s too old. He’s not right. He needs to shave.” But being around Robert Downey Jr. helped. Pedro said RDJ made him feel comfortable being scared, unsure, and real. He hopes the new Fantastic Four movie shows their hearts on a platter. He said, “You just never know if people are going to be disgusted by your heart or not.”
