José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal ( Spanish: [xoˈse ˈpeðɾo βalmaˈseða pasˈkal] ; born April 2, 1975), known professionally as Pedro Pascal , is a Chilean and American actor. Known for his portrayals of parental figures, he has starred in television series and blockbuster films. His accolades include an Actor Award , in addition to nominations for a Golden Globe Award and four Primetime Emmy Awards . Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023. [ 1 ] After nearly two decades of taking small roles on stage and television, Pascal’s breakout roles came as Oberyn Martell in the fourth season of the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones (2014) and as Javier Peña in the Netflix crime series Narcos (2015–2017). He achieved international stardom for his leading roles as Din Djarin in the Disney+ science fiction series The Mandalorian (2019–2023) and Joel Miller in the HBO post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us (2023–present), earning him a reputation for portraying adoptive father figures . His performance in The Last of Us earned him numerous accolades, including a SAG Award for Outstanding Male Actor in a Drama Series . In film, Pascal gained further recognition for starring in Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), Gladiator II (2024), Materialists and The Fantastic Four: First Steps (both 2025). His other films include The Great Wall (2016), Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), The Equalizer 2 (2018), and Triple Frontier (2019). He also provided voice work for the animated film The Wild Robot (2024). On stage, Pascal has appeared in various theater productions. He made his Broadway debut as Edmund in a 2019 adaptation of King Lear . José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal was born on April 2, 1975, in Santiago , Chile [ 2 ] to Verónica Pascal Ureta (1953–2000), a child psychologist , and José Balmaceda Riera (1948–), a reproductive endocrinologist . [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] Pascal has an older sister Javiera Balmaceda [ es ; fr ] , a producer at Amazon MGM Studios, a younger brother Nicolás and a younger sister Lux , an actress. [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] His paternal grandmother, Juanita, was born in Palma de Mallorca , Spain. [ 3 ] [ 11 ] Through his parents Pascal is related to the aristocratic Allende and Balmaceda family . [ 4 ] [ 5 ] Pascal is the great-nephew of Laura Allende , a politician, and the second cousin of Denise Pascal , a Socialist Party politician, and Andrés Pascal Allende , a sociologist , former Secretary General of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left and prominent member of the Chilean Resistance and Solidarity Movement . [ 12 ] [ 13 ] Two years before Pascal’s birth, the democratically elected socialist government of President Salvador Allende was overthrown by General Augusto Pinochet , leading to the country becoming a military dictatorship . [ 14 ] Both of Pascal’s parents were listed as enemies of the state by the Pinochet regime and the family eventually fled Chile when he was nine months old, [ 14 ] after seeking refuge in the Venezuelan embassy in Santiago for six months. [ 14 ] The family later received political asylum in Denmark [ 15 ] [ 16 ] before settling in the United States, where Pascal was raised in San Antonio , Texas, [ 17 ] until they relocated to Orange County, California , when he was eleven years old. [ 16 ] By the time he was eight years old, his family regularly visited Chile to see his 34 cousins. [ 18 ] His parents returned to Chile in 1995 after his father Dr. José P. Balmaceda was accused of stealing fertility patients’ eggs and embryos and implanting them in other women without their knowledge and consent. [ 19 ] He pursued acting at the Orange County School of the Arts and graduated in 1993, before attending New York University ‘s Tisch School of the Arts , where he graduated in 1997. [ 16 ] [ 20 ] After his mother’s death, he began using his maternal surname professionally as a tribute to her and because he felt that Americans had difficulty pronouncing his paternal surname, Balmaceda. [ 18 ]
Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Pascal