Pedro Pascal on how his parents escaped Chile under Pinochet: ‘they were so brave’

Pedro Pascal has been making the rounds for Emmy season where he’s likely to pick up a best actor in a drama nomination for The Last of Us, but he’s also promoting a new project. Strange Way of Life, an English-language short film from Pedro Almodovar, casts Pedro and Ethan Hawke as gay cowboys. ‘What, like Brokeback Mountain?’ Yes, exactly. Almodovar conceived of this film in direct response to his experience seeing Brokeback Mountain. Almodovar and Hawke debuted the film at Cannes last month, but Pascal missed the premiere to attend his sister’s Julliard graduation. Instead he sat down recently with Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes on their SmartLess podcast and discussed this project as well as the informative influences of his Chilean-refugee parents:

Pedro Pascal is sharing his immigrant story and how he almost didn’t get a chance to become an actor.

The “Last of Us” star recalled on the “Smartless” podcast this week what his parents did to survive the military dictatorship in Chile, where he was born, and flee to the U.S..

Pascal was born in Santiago in 1975. He reportedly described his parents as “young, liberal college students,” dangerous characteristics during the reign of Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990.

Pascal told podcast hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett that his parents weren’t “revolutionaries by any stretch of the imagination.” But being a Chilean centrist at the height of social and political unrest was impossible, and his father, a doctor, had to make a choice.

Pascal was 4 months old when a gunshot victim was brought to his home so his father could “tend to the wound.” His parents decided to “hide” the person “for a while,” he said.

The person who brought the gunshot victim to his house was “taken into custody and tortured–and gave names,” Pascal said. He previously told Time that his mother’s cousin was very involved in anti-Pinochet activities.

“They came looking for my parents, and so then my parents had to go into hiding for about six months,” said Pascal, per CNN. His parents eventually climbed the Venezuelan embassy walls to “demand asylum.”

“And it worked,” he continued.

Pascal also told his immigration story in his “Saturday Night Live” monologue in February.

“I was born in Chile and nine months later my parents fled Pinochet and brought me and my sister to the U.S.,” he said on the show. “They were so brave, and without them I wouldn’t be here in this wonderful country. And I certainly wouldn’t be standing here with you all tonight.”

Pascal and his sister were sent to Denmark before being allowed to enter the U.S.. The “Game of Thrones” star said he and his sister were raised in America, while his little brothers grew up in Chile after his parents moved back to the country in 1995.

“So to all my family in Chile, I just want to say I love you, I miss you, and stop giving out my personal information,” he said on “SNL” in Spanish.

[From HuffPost]

He’s just too good in this interview. Will, Jason and Sean are improv guys and can go off on riffs easily, but it was noticeable how attentive they became when Pedro was telling his family stories. At one point Pedro described seeing the 1982 film Missing, when he was just a kid, and how it was a way for him to connect with his parents’ experience, since his parents adamantly did not want to talk about Chile for a long time. He also offered lighter notes, sharing that his father took him to see horror films at the movies all the time, but he absolutely put his foot down at Pedro seeing… The Breakfast Club. I’m not complaining, mind you, cause whatever his parents did, it certainly worked.

I also enjoyed Pedro explaining how he went from working under the name Pedro Balmaceda, his father’s last name, to Pascal, his mother’s last name. It was both practical and poignant: Americans had a lot of trouble saying Balmaceda, and when he was 24 his mother passed away, so it was a fitting tribute to her (although he emphatically states he was considering the change before she died). The podcast is a lovely 43 minutes that fly by, unlike the wait-time we face until Pedro & Ethan’s thirst trap film debuts in the US “sometime in the fall.”

Photos credit: BauerGriffin/INSTARimages, Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon, JPI Studios/Avalon and via Instagram