PEDRO PASCAL
IS TAKING OVER THE GALAXY…
The Mandalorian is burning brighter than the sun.
Ihave the cliché ‘struggling actor’ story,” says Chilean-American Pedro Pascal. “I was waiting tables in New York, went out to LA soon after graduation to get some jobs, but it didn’t work out. I wanted to cut my teeth in professional theatre, so I came back to New York…”
Cue two decades as a jobbing actor until, staring 40 in face, Pascal appeared as Prince Oberyn Martell in seven episodes of Season 4 of Game Of Thrones. Fighting and fornicating, he stole the season. Next, he battled Colombian drug cartels as real-life field operative Javier Peña in Netflix series Narcos, co-starred with Matt Damon’s ponytail in The Great Wall, and showed plenty of root for his toot as US agent Whiskey in Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
Yet just a couple of years ago, the driver of a limousine sent to pick Pascal up from an airport mistook him for a homeless man; his luggage was battered from two years of ricocheting between far-flung locations, and he was “wearing comfortable clothes to travel”. That will not be happening any more, for the 43-year-old is part of an exceptional ensemble in Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk, and has three stellar projects pipelined: J.C. Chandor’s drug-lord thriller Triple Frontier, alongside Charlie Hunnam, Ben Affleck and Oscar Isaac; Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984; and the lead role in spin-off Star Wars series The Mandalorian.
This last, being made for Disney’s new streaming service, is shrouded in secrecy, though we know Pascal will play “a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic”. And given Boba Fett wore Mandalorian armour, expect cool costumes. So, Pascal is poised to be a star. Just don’t expect his head to swell. “I was born in Chile and was already almost two when I came to the States,” he says. “There’s something to that. It’s just rude if you’re not respectful, because you’re a guest. Also, don’t draw too much attention to yourself. And you have more to prove…” He’s going about that last one with aplomb.
ETA | 8 FEBRUARY / IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK OpEnS nEXT MOnTH. TRIpLE FROnTIER AnD THE MAnDALORIAn WILL OpEn LATER In 2019. WOnDER WOMAn 1984 OpEnS In 2020.