2025 is the year of Pedro Pascal. Here's why he's having a moment
Pedro Pascal as Mr. Fantastic in "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," which opened in theaters Friday, July 25. With four movies and a TV series in four months, Pascal's career is on fire. (Marvel Studios/Associated Press)
A light, drizzly rain had started to pour, interrupting what began as a balmy March evening in Oakland, and Pedro Pascal was wistful. In exactly two weeks, he would turn 50, and he was feeling it.
"I chase nostalgia a lot, now that I'm getting older," Pascal told the Chronicle. "I'm a moviegoer more than I am anything else in life, to be honest."
As he walked the red carpet, then attended the premiere of the Oakland-shot "Freaky Tales" at the Grand Lake Theatre, and gently held court at the after-party at Dragon Gate in Jack London Square, Pascal seemed to be treasuring the experience, as if taking a career victory lap.
But the end is hardly near. If Pascal is truly an alpha moviegoer, then he's been seeing a lot of Pedro Pascal movies lately. Over the past four months, beginning with April's release of "Freaky Tales," the Chilean-born actor has starred in four movies and one limited series.
Pedro Pascal smiles on the red carpet during the Oakland premiere of "Freaky Tales" at the Grand Lake Theatre on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. Two weeks later, he would turn 50. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/S.F. Chronicle)
In May, he was featured in the second season of HBO Max's epic post-apocalyptic series "The Last of Us," for which he earned his fourth Emmy nomination. In June he co-starred with Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans in "Materialists," Celine Song's sharp takedown of the New York dating scene. In July, he is co-headlining in Ari Aster's pandemic potboiler "Eddington" and the Marvel superhero reboot "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," which opened Friday, July 25, and has already pulled a 2025-best $24.4 million in Thursday previews.
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"The Fantastic Four: First Steps" (PG-13), "Materialists" (R) and "Eddington" (R) are in theaters. "The Last of Us" (TV-MA) is streaming on HBO Max. "Materialists" (R) and "Freaky Tales" (R) are available digitally for rental or purchase.
It is so obvious: 2025 is the Year of Pascal. He's even on the cover of this month's Vanity Fair with the title, "Everyone wants a piece of Pedro." Indeed.
Dial it back to 2024, when he appeared in four movies, including "Gladiator II," and that's eight movies in a year and a half.
That's an amazing run for a longtime journeyman actor who began as a Spanish-speaking immigrant, although a privileged one: His aristocratic parents fled Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship and eventually settled in San Antonio, then Southern California.
Pedro Pascal, right, stars with Bella Ramsey in "The Last of Us." Both actors and the show have been nominated for Emmy Awards. (Associated Press)
But for more than a quarter of a century he had struggled, cobbling together a career with credits that include TV guest shots in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Touched By an Angel" and "NYPD Blue" to name just a few.
So why Pedro Pascal, and why now?
Strangely, his big breakthrough was a role that hid his face. The Disney+ "Star Wars" spinoff "The Mandalorian" (2019-23) starred Pascal as Din Djarin, the helmeted bounty hunter charged with protecting the Yoda-like Baby Grogu. He's never been off the A-list since.
Pascal had been in high profile projects before - a recurring role in Season 4 of "Game of Thrones" in 2014 and a co-lead in the Netflix series "Narcos" (2015-17). But "The Mandalorian" made him flaming hot.
A small-town sheriff played by Joaquin Phoenix, left, argues with the town's mayor, played by Pedro Pascal, in Ari Aster's "Eddington." (Associated Press)
To capitalize, he accepted the role as the villain in the 2020 pandemic box office casualty "Wonder Woman 1984," opposite Gal Gadot. To prove his versatility, he shaved off his trademark mustache.
Big mistake.
"Strongly disagree with a clean shaven me," Pascal groused to Variety recently. "I was so appalled by the way I look in ‘Wonder Woman 1984.'"
Which brings up another part of the Pascal mystique. Has there been a Hollywood star as defined by his mustache since Burt Reynolds?
Pedro Pascal, right, is "perfect" and checks every box," according to the matchmaker played by Dakota Johnson, left, in Celine Song's "Materialists." (Associated Press)
That might be one key to Pascal, who in the eyes of many of his growing number of fans is getting better looking with age. Every scraggly facial hair, every crinkly wrinkle around the eyes, every graying hair of his unruly mop adds depth. The guy increasingly feels lived-in, like an REI-outfitted dreamboat.
In "Materialists," Johnson, as a Manhattan matchmaker, calls his character "perfect," one who "checks every box." In "The Last of Us," he is confronted by a young woman seeking revenge for her father's death, a man he killed. Even as she is consumed by vengeance, the woman, played with wonderful bloodlust by Kaitlyn Dever, stops for a moment and observes, "You actually are pretty handsome. Congrats on that."
In "Eddington," Joaquin Phoenix's sheriff with an inferiority complex is intimidated by the charisma of Pascal's small-town New Mexico mayor. And obviously, Pascal's role as Mr. Fantastic, stud scientist and astronaut in "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," speaks for itself. Forget the Silver Surfer; he's the Silver Fox.
Yet sex appeal only partially explains Pascal's popularity. What has really made him a star is that we have come to instinctively trust him.
Pedro Pascal plays a hitman looking to reform in "Freaky Tales," a movie by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck set in 1987 Oakland. (Lionsgate)
In "The Mandalorian," "The Last of Us" and "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," he's a protector. Pascal, who has a transgender sister, is that way in real life, too. In April he slammed an anti-trangender Instagram post by "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling, calling it "Heinous LOSER behavior," just one example of his willingness to engage on social and political issues.
But even in "Freaky Tales," in which he's a contract killer looking to reform, he's a man holding on to hard-won truth and experience.
And that's ultimately what Pascal brings to the table. He doesn't have time for B.S. He's lived a life, and it shows, especially in those melancholy eyes that seem to say so much. That experience informs the sixth episode of the second season of "The Last of Us," which features some of his best acting and is one of the best hours of television this year.
One gets the feeling this is only the beginning of an impactful and appealing late-career surge.
