Pedro Pascal nearly quit acting to become a nurse
Pedro Pascal has admitted he almost quit acting to pursue a nursing career after being discouraged by a lack of success in his 20s and 30s.
While he is now a household name thanks to shows such as The Last Of Us and The Mandalorian, the actor struggled to make a mark early in his career. Having spent much of his time playing minor parts in TV shows, his breakthrough came in 2014, aged 39, as Oberyn Martell in the hit Game Of Thrones.
Now 50 and due to star in Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Pascal looks back on his early years as a difficult time. “In my 30s I was supposed to have a career,” he told Vanity Fair. “Past 29 without a career meant that it was over, definitely”.
His older sister Javiera Balmaceda, a Hollywood producer, recalled: “When Pedro would say, ‘I’m going to nursing school’ or ‘I’m going to be a theatre teacher,’ it was just like ‘No, no, no, no! You’re too good!’ He’s wanted to be an actor since he was four years old. The one thing we’d never allow Pedro to do was give up”.
Pascal then joked about how he would have fared in the nursing profession. “I’d be a selective nurse, like I was as a waiter,” he said. “I’d fall in love with some patients and hate others. And that poor patient that I hated!”
The star now looks at getting older in a different way. “Stepping into my 40s felt adult and empowered,” Pascal said. “50 felt more vulnerable — much more vulnerable. What a silly thing for a 50-year-old man — to have all this attention!”
Since his rise to dame, Pedro Pascal has used his platform to advocate for things such as Transgender rights (his younger sister, Lux, transitioned in 2021). In April, he branded J.K. Rowling a “heinous loser” for celebrating the Supreme Court ruling that transgender women are not legally women under the Equality Act.
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Victoria Luxford
NME
