Pedro Pascal, one of the most in-demand actors in Hollywood right now, with leading roles in The Mandalorian and The Fantastic Four, once had his career far from secure, and at one point he was close to giving up.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight at the 2024 SAG Awards, when he won for his role at The Last of Us, Pascal looked back on his early years. “My entry level lasted about 15 years,” he said.
During that time he struggled to pay basic needs, such as paying the rent to keep his home. “I had less than $7 in my bank account,” he recalled.
The check that saved his actor career
Just when he had almost nothing left, a residual payment arrived, the money actors receive when a show they once appeared in is aired again.
It came from a small role he had in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where he played a college student in a 1999 episode, credited at the time as Pedro Balmaceda. He later adopted his mother’s last name, Pascal, after her death.
According to Pascal, that payment “literally is the reason I was able to stay in it and not give up.”
The long road Pascal had until reaching fame
Pascal’s breakthrough came in 2014, when he played Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones. He then starred in Narcos and, in 2019, landed the lead role in The Mandalorian. In 2023, The Last of Us made him a global star.
He has reflected on how late success came for him. In a card to his The Last of Us co-star Bella Ramsey, he wrote: “How interesting that something so huge and life-changing should happen so early in your life and so late in mine.”