Speaker 1: Pushkin. This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show today. I'm joined by actor Pedro Pascal. You've
Speaker 1: watched him in Game of Thrones, Narcos, Wonder Woman nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four, and The Mandalorian. This spring, he has three
Speaker 1: new projects, including The Bubble directed by Judd apataw House,
Speaker 1: Come with the Bird directed by Jannick Sobravo, and most recently,
Speaker 1: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent directed by Tom Gormackan.
Speaker 1: The film stars Nick Cage as Nick Cage, an actor who,
Speaker 1: to avoid financial ruin, accepts a one million dollar offer
Speaker 1: to attend a wealthy fan's birthday party. The fan, of course,
Speaker 1: is played by Pascal. Here's a clip from The Unbearable
Speaker 1: Weight a Massive Talent. You can't quit acting. You can't.
Speaker 1: That's not your business, whether you like it or not.
Speaker 1: You have a gift, and that gift brings light and
Speaker 1: joy to an increasingly dark and broken world. And to
Speaker 1: turn your back on that gift is to turn your
Speaker 1: back on the entire human race. We have to go now,
Speaker 1: we have to jump. You're in an untenable situation, you
Speaker 1: know that, rack, and let's get you out of here.
Speaker 1: That was a scene from The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,
Speaker 1: now out in theaters across the country. Pascal was born
Speaker 1: in Chile, but grew up here in America watching Nick
Speaker 1: Cage through the nineteen eighties in films like Peggy Sue
Speaker 1: Got Married, Raising Arizona, Moonstruck. Now, forty years later, Pascal
Speaker 1: is sharing screen time with Cage himself. As you'll hear,
Speaker 1: the full circle nature of this moment is not lost
Speaker 1: on him, neither is his recent success. But Pascal's life
Speaker 1: didn't always look the way it does today at age
Speaker 1: forty seven. It's been a long, winding journey from an
Speaker 1: immigrant kid who dreamed of being in movies to the
Speaker 1: actor we've come to love. And it's the incredible journey
Speaker 1: between those two people that we try to chart in
Speaker 1: this conversation. I hope you enjoy pa, See how are
Speaker 1: you feeling? I feel good. It's nice to be here.
Speaker 1: There was no traffic and I like driving. People on
Speaker 1: a podcast love to hear about la People talk about
Speaker 1: driving traffic right Historically they loved this. It came over
Speaker 1: from Venice. It was a long way. I felt bad,
Speaker 1: I did. There was no traffic, Okay, good. I mean,
Speaker 1: once you get to the one, let's do this, yes, okay?
Speaker 1: And did you get to we'll hid to the one ten?
Speaker 1: You know, and you start to go through downtown. Of
Speaker 1: course it was traffic. He getting to the five windows
Speaker 1: down on the way over here, on the way over okay,
Speaker 1: and then playing music, it got congested. I was actually
Speaker 1: listening to KPCC, but normally I would be listening to
Speaker 1: music and driving kind of fast. This film unbearable way
Speaker 1: of massive talent. It's coming out today today. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: do you feel on a day like this? Do you
Speaker 1: wake up nervous? I don't know how to feel about it,
Speaker 1: because it's never been the same. It's always been, at
Speaker 1: least through my experience, what seems like unique and different
Speaker 1: than how I would have expected it to be or
Speaker 1: feel like how I fantasized about it as a kid
Speaker 1: or as an unworking actor. Because today this would be
Speaker 1: like the first thing that I've done that is not
Speaker 1: coming out on a streaming service or during the pandemic
Speaker 1: or with me actually in town. It's like a movie
Speaker 1: out in the world. People have to go to theaters
Speaker 1: to see it. Yeah, yeah, how they used to do them? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we're still sort of figuring out how to do
Speaker 1: that again. So I don't know what normal is, obviously,
Speaker 1: but none of it exists in the realm of what
Speaker 1: my expectations or fears would be. So it sort of
Speaker 1: eliminates any kind of expectation because I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what the hell is going on, and this bond
Speaker 1: is planned anymore. I'm gonna go do a podcast today
Speaker 1: and there's no traffic. There's no traffic, there's no Does
Speaker 1: that mean nobody's going to the movies? It's good to
Speaker 1: just bring it back to yourself. There's no there's no traffic.
Speaker 1: Does that mean my film is bombing? People aren't going
Speaker 1: to the nine thirty showing? Does that mean that the
Speaker 1: movie that I have a supporting role in and people
Speaker 1: the actors are narcissists And they're not. They're just not.
Speaker 1: They're just they're like you, You're you're selfless exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about traffic, I'm thinking about the movies. People,
Speaker 1: please go see the movie for his sake. Yeah, seriously,
Speaker 1: go see this movie. Come on. In this film, you
Speaker 1: play a super fan of Nicholas Cage who offers Nicholas
Speaker 1: Cage the actor in the film A Million Dollars to
Speaker 1: show up to his fourth birthday party in Spain. Now,
Speaker 1: in the film, Nick Cage is playing a version of
Speaker 1: himself as actor Nicolas Cage. You are playing, I think
Speaker 1: a slight version of yourself as someone who actually is
Speaker 1: a massive fan of Nicholas Cage. Yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: because of what my timeline is specifically, I was born
Speaker 1: in seventy five. We got cable television pretty early, so
Speaker 1: there were some of his early movies on HBO, and
Speaker 1: then my father loved to go to the movies. He
Speaker 1: would take us to the movies a lot. On cable.
Speaker 1: You would watch Valley Girl, Bertie Racing with the Moon exactly, Rumblefish,
Speaker 1: Valley Girl in particular, because what do you have. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like this sort of dyed, reddish fuchia hair. Right.
Speaker 1: What was crazy about that was, if you think about
Speaker 1: it now, it was cool to be in the valley
Speaker 1: and then those crazy delinquents on the other side of
Speaker 1: the hill in like the whole part of town in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: like having real lives, those that you know, she was
Speaker 1: just really slumming it. But yeah, so sort of absorbing
Speaker 1: these kinds of movies very young. This is a different time.
Speaker 1: My parents were very young. We were really kind of
Speaker 1: unsupervised a lot of the time. As far as TV
Speaker 1: was concerned. There weren't too many rules. It took a
Speaker 1: lot to send us out of the room. It took
Speaker 1: them not liking the movie to send you out of
Speaker 1: the room exactly. There were two movies really that I
Speaker 1: remember very vividly having like a huge impact on me
Speaker 1: and both of them because I didn't know what we
Speaker 1: were going to go see. Often already at a young age,
Speaker 1: I was like, I want to see this, or I
Speaker 1: knew what we were going to go and I had
Speaker 1: an expectation around it. But I remember Peggy's Who Got Married.
Speaker 1: I had no idea what it is, What could it
Speaker 1: possibly be with a title like that, had no idea.
Speaker 1: It was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and the other
Speaker 1: one was Raising Arizona, and I had no idea. I'd
Speaker 1: never seen I'd actually like tried to see Blood Simple
Speaker 1: because the trailer had appeared before some movie I saw
Speaker 1: when I was a child looked so scary and so
Speaker 1: visually cool. I like the image of a nine year
Speaker 1: old pedro thinking, yeah, I want to see the Colin
Speaker 1: Brothers directorial debut. I'm telling you get me in here,
Speaker 1: and I remember, like, you know, on drives and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, because there was this kind of I just
Speaker 1: remember this sequel. I was really into scary thrillery shit
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, and I am still now.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. He was like burying a body
Speaker 1: out in some Texas field or something like that, and
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing a kid wants to say.
Speaker 1: I guess it was just all the drama that I
Speaker 1: was after. I don't know. I remember thinking about the
Speaker 1: trailer did not connect it to when we saw Raising Arizona.
Speaker 1: And at the start of Raising Arizona, I remember thinking
Speaker 1: that the whole first few minutes was a trailer for
Speaker 1: this phenomenal movie. I'd never seen anything like that and
Speaker 1: had that sort of visual voluptuousness. It was just like,
Speaker 1: what is this? And then the title blazed in and
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, this is the movie. So anyway,
Speaker 1: there were very impressionable films very very early, with not
Speaker 1: normal performances from this actor. Yeah, kind of big bombastic pieces,
Speaker 1: big swings that shouldn't work and work incredibly. They almost
Speaker 1: work in spite of themselves, like they're so big that
Speaker 1: they become kind of undeniable. Yeah, but if you see
Speaker 1: them again, it isn't about these performances being big. It's
Speaker 1: just completely stylized but also really truthful. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I have been kissing this ass so much, I know,
Speaker 1: but I mean it. I really thought you're gonna say,
Speaker 1: and I'm tired of it. I'm tired. I'm tired of
Speaker 1: listening to myself in terms of the earnestness around this
Speaker 1: issue where I guess my favorite thing in life has
Speaker 1: always been movies, and then going back and reviewing these performances,
Speaker 1: I guess I've been able to really plunder what it
Speaker 1: meant to me as a kid seeing something like that
Speaker 1: for the first time, because it really holds up. It
Speaker 1: is everything that I would want to be able to
Speaker 1: pull off as an actor, is do something completely theatrical
Speaker 1: and there be so much truth and skill and believability
Speaker 1: in their performance. I think the thing you're hitting on, though,
Speaker 1: is that purity that he seems to have in performing.
Speaker 1: And I want to kind of understand the pure place
Speaker 1: from which I think you started to love movies. So,
Speaker 1: as you said, you were born in Chile, your parents,
Speaker 1: Veronica and Jose were young liberals in their twenties combating
Speaker 1: a sort of militaristic regime in that country. At the
Speaker 1: time they flee, they receive asylum in the Venezuelan embassy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: then they go to Denmark. And then in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: you're one years old and men you land in San Antonio.
Speaker 1: I was nine months old when we loved Chile. We
Speaker 1: were in Denmark like under a year, and we ended
Speaker 1: up in San Antonio. At what point in your childhood
Speaker 1: do you begin to understand the origin story of where
Speaker 1: you came from. It's hard to piece together because I
Speaker 1: know that my sister and I went back to Chile
Speaker 1: without our parents because our parents weren't allowed back. I've
Speaker 1: got an enormous family from both sides, and there visually,
Speaker 1: the way that I saw it, the presence of what
Speaker 1: had happened, the fact that my sister and I were
Speaker 1: the only two out of thirty four first cousins all
Speaker 1: living in Santiago, Chile, that we were the only two,
Speaker 1: that we were sort of like these unique members of
Speaker 1: the family being embraced and taken care of with our
Speaker 1: parents thousands of miles away, and so I started to
Speaker 1: develop a real fear of like camouflaged military guards with
Speaker 1: machine guns that were monitoring. You know, it's not like
Speaker 1: they were everywhere or anything like that. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: there was a sort of normalcy of lifestyle that was
Speaker 1: achieved for all of my cousins that are the ones
Speaker 1: that are older with me, that basically essentially grew up
Speaker 1: under a military dictatorship. And yet the visual of that
Speaker 1: knowing somehow at such a young age that if my
Speaker 1: parents were there, they would take them away and maybe
Speaker 1: kill them. The way that that lived, almost like a
Speaker 1: kind of supernatural presence in my imagination, was so weird.
Speaker 1: And then we watched so many movies, and I remember
Speaker 1: seeing Indiana Jones like running across the playing field with
Speaker 1: Karen Allen in that white dress, and my Karen Allen
Speaker 1: looked so much like my mother, and so I started
Speaker 1: to imagine things like that, like my father and mother
Speaker 1: hand in hand, like running as like they were being
Speaker 1: shot at a ross, like a dusty sort of airplane field.
Speaker 1: What do you call well, you said earlier that and
Speaker 1: being interested in blood simple you were searching for a
Speaker 1: kind of drama, which is kind of surprising considering where
Speaker 1: you come from. Yeah, the dramas kind of built in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're not talking about it either. There was a
Speaker 1: very dramatic you and your parents aren't talking about Oh no,
Speaker 1: not at all, nor any of the family members that
Speaker 1: made it over to us in Texas from Chile. And
Speaker 1: there was a very dramatic moment in our house when
Speaker 1: I was a child, because it's close to grab us
Speaker 1: movie called Missing with Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemon, which
Speaker 1: deals with the military dictatorship in Chile at the time.
Speaker 1: It's a true story where an American journalist went missing
Speaker 1: and was found dead. I remember watching this at home
Speaker 1: on cable and there was a moment where Sissy spaces
Speaker 1: character she doesn't make it home before curfew and she
Speaker 1: just kind of gets trapped in the city. And again
Speaker 1: of a beautiful, small framed woman that reminded me so
Speaker 1: much of my mother and had sort of projected these
Speaker 1: kinds of images of my mother into these characters circumstances,
Speaker 1: and I just remember completely falling apart when she was
Speaker 1: in danger and when she was so afraid, and imagining
Speaker 1: that that could have happened to my mother. I remember
Speaker 1: having a little bit of a breakdown. What's almost like
Speaker 1: in the house, no one in the family talked about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it took a film from Hollywood, yeah, to kind
Speaker 1: of give language to something no one was giving language too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know I could sit through anything at the time.
Speaker 1: And I remember like just starting to cry and being like,
Speaker 1: I can't, I can't watch this. And I was like, gosh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I must have been like eight. You're
Speaker 1: asking me, like, I know, Yeah, how old was I
Speaker 1: Maybe eight? That sounds right because by the time you're twelve,
Speaker 1: your family moves to Orange County. You said, when I
Speaker 1: was twelve years old, we already enjoyed a very privileged situation,
Speaker 1: and compared to others, I was quite a spoiled boy.
Speaker 1: Was that true? Yeah? I was spoiled. You know. Our
Speaker 1: dad was taken us to the movies all the time.
Speaker 1: We had cable television. You know. Eventually, once we got
Speaker 1: into high school years, my mother had found this performing
Speaker 1: arts program that I had an auditioned for and got into.
Speaker 1: I didn't like have to work during school. They weren't
Speaker 1: comfortable with that getting in the way of schoolwork. They
Speaker 1: didn't buy me a car. I got like the hand
Speaker 1: me Down Volvo. For sure, I think culturally what it
Speaker 1: means to spoil your kid in Chili, at least then
Speaker 1: is a little different. Although certainly I was developing needs
Speaker 1: from lots of John Hughes movies that I was watching
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, and my dad would literally
Speaker 1: be like, who you know being allowed to see everything?
Speaker 1: You know, there was one movie I wasn't allowed to see,
Speaker 1: which one, The Breakfast Club. I was dying to see it.
Speaker 1: I was desperate to see it, and I wasn't allowed.
Speaker 1: Are the argument being it was rated R? But I
Speaker 1: was like, but so was First Blood, and you took
Speaker 1: me to the movies to see that. You know. Essentially,
Speaker 1: what I came to understand is that my father was like,
Speaker 1: here are these kids complaining about their parents through the
Speaker 1: whole movie. Their lives look pretty good to me, so no,
Speaker 1: you're not seeing that movie. I like the idea that
Speaker 1: your dad actually wouldn't to go see the movie first,
Speaker 1: like he screened it for himself. He's like, you know what,
Speaker 1: this is not a picture for my son. He's gonna
Speaker 1: start resenting us can develop all these bad happits, Those
Speaker 1: kinds of ideas like yeah, can't have that. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: could see the big chill about sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: his sex and vie whatever, but not kids complaint not.
Speaker 1: He's like, you're not getting any ideas from this thing.
Speaker 1: Was it in high school that you started to develop
Speaker 1: an interest in acting? No, I wanted to. That was
Speaker 1: why my mom found this performance program, because it was
Speaker 1: sort of this fantasy that I was sharing with everybody
Speaker 1: at a very very young age. You know, I knew
Speaker 1: I wanted to be in movies and started talking about
Speaker 1: it when I was seven years old. And what did
Speaker 1: people say when you said that they thought it was cute?
Speaker 1: I would imagine that maybe I kind of when given
Speaker 1: the opportunity to get attention, I would seize it and
Speaker 1: entertain and either annoy or really seduce an audience. As
Speaker 1: far as parents, friends and stuff were concerned, so maybe
Speaker 1: they were like, yeah, you know, you definitely need a
Speaker 1: lot of attention. Nobody seemed surprised. He either needs therapy
Speaker 1: or he needs acting, and I got both. You know,
Speaker 1: as soon as we moved to California at the age
Speaker 1: of I was eleven, turning to immediately was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: we're getting closer and closer to Hollywood, you know, really
Speaker 1: that was actually in your head. Absolutely, And so my
Speaker 1: mother found like a summer program at South Coast Repertory
Speaker 1: in Costa Mesa. This is before I got to high school.
Speaker 1: Other friends found this like children's acting program at Laguna Beach,
Speaker 1: and I auditioned for the kids show at the Luguna
Speaker 1: Beach Playhouse and got the lead. And it was a
Speaker 1: play called Wiley and the Harryman, and I was Wiley.
Speaker 1: You know. So at that point, all right, he's really
Speaker 1: into this. He doesn't want to swim anymore. Let's just
Speaker 1: keep him occupied. And they so they didn't mind it
Speaker 1: at all as far as how much it kept me
Speaker 1: out of the house, out of the house watching, you know,
Speaker 1: from kept me from wanting to sit in front of
Speaker 1: the TV all day, which I do know because I'm
Speaker 1: an adult and I got what I wanted. You're that kids,
Speaker 1: if you grow up, you can just sit around and
Speaker 1: watch yourself on TV. Oh sorry, he didn't mention that
Speaker 1: he only watches things that he's in or things that
Speaker 1: he auditioned for it, and he didn't get exactly over
Speaker 1: and over and over again. I'm not going to go
Speaker 1: down that list. It's too that's for sure the day
Speaker 1: that changed you, as I understand it, senior year of
Speaker 1: high school, a friend of your mothers gives you tickets
Speaker 1: to Angels in America downtown Los Angeles at the Mark Taper,
Speaker 1: Yeah before Broadway. Walk me through that day that performance. Basically,
Speaker 1: my mother's friend said she had theater tickets to something
Speaker 1: that started at three in the afternoon and ended, you know,
Speaker 1: after ten pm, and didn't have the back for it,
Speaker 1: like had back issues. And so if I wanted these tickets,
Speaker 1: I could take a friend and she'd give me a
Speaker 1: note to get out of school early and drive to
Speaker 1: to the Taper and see this this play. She didn't
Speaker 1: know what it was, and neither did I, and I
Speaker 1: was like, fuck, yeah, get out of school early. It
Speaker 1: goes get play. Hell yeah. And it was Oscar Eustace's
Speaker 1: production of Angels in America. I think it's probably one
Speaker 1: of the twentieth centuries like most important pieces of literature,
Speaker 1: much less theater, because if you read it on the page,
Speaker 1: it's as good as a book, you know. And so
Speaker 1: I saw that with this underdeveloped brain, and it was
Speaker 1: about everything, and I remember it very vividly, so much
Speaker 1: so that I haven't really been able to see other
Speaker 1: versions of it because of how indelibly marked that first
Speaker 1: experience was what elements in it spoke to you. It
Speaker 1: just was so fantastic in concept and in drama. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there were a ton of things that were over
Speaker 1: my head. It was overtly sexual, it was overtly politically,
Speaker 1: it was overtly intellectual, it was overtly emotional. And so
Speaker 1: there was just the vi rural experience of these very
Speaker 1: well written scenes, for one, and these hyperintellectual speeches and
Speaker 1: monologues opening each kind of chapter of the play, and
Speaker 1: the political history of it all. And you know, you
Speaker 1: started to hear about AIDS before we all hit puberty
Speaker 1: in my generation, and so little information on that, and
Speaker 1: I think sex for all of us just seemed so scary.
Speaker 1: It seems scary to all of us, all my friends,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like the idea of like,
Speaker 1: you know, being reckless around sex seemed like it just
Speaker 1: would have such consequences. At that point, it didn't matter
Speaker 1: if you were gay or straight. You know, as we
Speaker 1: were sort of entering into that phase in life, we
Speaker 1: started to you know, look for saying I have ZEX
Speaker 1: basically and so it was just dealt with all of
Speaker 1: these things kind of head on. I didn't know about
Speaker 1: really coming, I didn't know about the Rosenbergs, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know enough about McCarthyism and all of these things.
Speaker 1: So it just kind of blew my brain wide open.
Speaker 1: But it was also like an incredible production, and the
Speaker 1: acting was so fierce, and I remember particularly between Harper
Speaker 1: and the character of Harp, but the Mormon couple and
Speaker 1: Pryor and Lewis and the way that they had these
Speaker 1: like simultaneous kinds of fights. I just remember being blown
Speaker 1: away politically and creatively. This piece spoke to you, and
Speaker 1: I clearly awoke something in a young eighteen year old
Speaker 1: version of yourself. I also remember around this time like
Speaker 1: the kinds of impression that certain things made with movies
Speaker 1: as well. I remember seeing sexualizing videotape and this four
Speaker 1: character piece and just sort of getting into my system.
Speaker 1: I remember a teacher doing into sakashenas for colored girls
Speaker 1: who have considered suicide when the rainbow was enough, and
Speaker 1: it literally just completely laying me out in terms of
Speaker 1: how dramatically effective these things were in that particularular form
Speaker 1: that play that movie. But also like what you were
Speaker 1: learning as a kid. You know, however it happened, it
Speaker 1: stirred something inside of you that made you think I
Speaker 1: should go to New York, attend NYU and try to
Speaker 1: make it go at this, Yeah, you're looking at me
Speaker 1: almost terrified. While there was just so many other movies
Speaker 1: that took place in New York that I had seen,
Speaker 1: and i'd sort of already developed. I'd gone to New
Speaker 1: York with my father when I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: I knew and again developed this fantasy of a life
Speaker 1: that would start in you know, first it was going
Speaker 1: to be Hollywood, and then I started to understand that
Speaker 1: real actors came from New York. And I loved it there,
Speaker 1: really did. When I was a kid, I saw a
Speaker 1: little Shop of Horrors, you know that the Second Avenue
Speaker 1: Theater where in ninety three David mammetts Oleano was there,
Speaker 1: and then Stomp came and never left. Stomp was there
Speaker 1: and I think is still there as far as I know.
Speaker 1: And that's where I find a little in awe of
Speaker 1: the privilege sometimes because I had these sort of disease
Speaker 1: that I believed that I ended up having access to,
Speaker 1: and also just believed contrinsically that would happen. I got
Speaker 1: into NYU. My parents did not want me to go.
Speaker 1: They nearly didn't let me go because in our house,
Speaker 1: like you had to do well in school and you
Speaker 1: had to get into college and then the rest of it,
Speaker 1: it didn't matter what you were doing. If these things
Speaker 1: were being accomplished, if these boxes were being checked, then
Speaker 1: they didn't care if you were fucking or doing your
Speaker 1: you know. And so but they did let you go,
Speaker 1: they did. They ended up letting me go to NYU. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I went there rude awakening, which part living there,
Speaker 1: going from being spoiled kid in Orange County, relatively sheltered
Speaker 1: kid in Orange County to living in New York and
Speaker 1: living in those winters and everyone way cooler than you,
Speaker 1: more talented, better, you know, smarter. Is just sort of
Speaker 1: like be thinking that you're the ship and then realizing
Speaker 1: that you are insignificant, you know, and that everyone has
Speaker 1: as much ambition as you, and just finding space for
Speaker 1: yourself and the kind of existential sort of confrontation that
Speaker 1: it was to kind of be in a much much
Speaker 1: bigger world. We'll be right back after a quick break.
Speaker 1: As you start to find your footing in New York.
Speaker 1: Is there any point in college where you started to think, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe this acting thing, it can happen for me. I
Speaker 1: feel comfortable in this. There was a classmate of mine,
Speaker 1: my friend, this amazing actor named Eugene Bird, who had
Speaker 1: started very earlies from Philadelphia and he's still, you know,
Speaker 1: going today. He's fantastic, and he had professional representation. In
Speaker 1: his generosity, he said, I think you should meet my manager.
Speaker 1: I think you're really good. And I met as manager.
Speaker 1: So before I ended up graduating NYU, I was being
Speaker 1: sent on auditions because I had professional representation and to me,
Speaker 1: so that left me under the impression that was just
Speaker 1: going to happen, Like immediately, you do get two quick breaks,
Speaker 1: don't you. Well, you know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: happened while I was still in school, I went to
Speaker 1: an open call for a movie called Primal Fear, got
Speaker 1: called back for it, called back for it again, and
Speaker 1: screen tested for it for the end Norton role. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it was something that Leonardo DiCaprio was going
Speaker 1: to do. And then that didn't happen, so they started
Speaker 1: looking and it was like the big sought after role
Speaker 1: I didn't get it. It left me with the impression that,
Speaker 1: while being heartbroken over that, I'll get the next one.
Speaker 1: Of course I did not, and then I did not,
Speaker 1: and then I did not, and then I did not
Speaker 1: until you got the role on Buffy. I did get
Speaker 1: a part on Buffy, which was incredibly exciting to me.
Speaker 1: It was the first episode of the fourth season, like
Speaker 1: one scene and I got killed, and I couldn't have
Speaker 1: been more excited about it. So you have representation, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're twenty two, twenty three, Yeah, agent manager, I have
Speaker 1: a couple of parts and something that got my sag.
Speaker 1: I got your sag. You know. Well, so you had
Speaker 1: some footing. Oh yeah, yeah, I thought, so, how does
Speaker 1: a twenty three year old you make sense of your
Speaker 1: mom's passing at that age? It was obviously very traumatic,
Speaker 1: and the circumstance of it is one that because she
Speaker 1: died in Chile, it means the services are immediate. They
Speaker 1: don't embalm. So it was it was getting the news
Speaker 1: and then getting on a plane and flying overnight to
Speaker 1: Santiago to go to a funeral. So you take a
Speaker 1: plane from New York from LA I was in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles when I found out because I'd been testing for
Speaker 1: a pilot called Dark Angel, which was a really big
Speaker 1: deal at the time because it was sort of the
Speaker 1: first thing that James Cameron's name was attached to after Titanic,
Speaker 1: and it was like a supporting role. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, number four on the call sheet for which
Speaker 1: again was going to be the thing that was going
Speaker 1: to change my life. Instead, your life changes in a
Speaker 1: completely different way. Yeah, on that plane ride, what's going
Speaker 1: through your head? You know? I can't say I know.
Speaker 1: I remember that there was a man sitting next to me.
Speaker 1: He didn't know what was going on, but a travel
Speaker 1: is often a pretty hostile experience. I just remember that
Speaker 1: there was a man sitting next to me. He was
Speaker 1: just kind of protective in a way. He could see
Speaker 1: that I was obviously going through something, and I remember,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. Maybe the stewardess was like,
Speaker 1: I wasn't very responsive or something, and she wasn't like
Speaker 1: being sensitive to something that was pretty obviously going on.
Speaker 1: And he kind of answered for me, and he was
Speaker 1: a complete stranger. He was like, he said he doesn't
Speaker 1: want you know, he said he doesn't want it. And
Speaker 1: I just can remember that and obviously didn't sleep, but
Speaker 1: it's an overnight flight, and so then you go and
Speaker 1: it was summer in Chile as well, so it's very
Speaker 1: beautiful out and it's a very beautiful day, and none
Speaker 1: of that seemed to coincide very well with what was happening,
Speaker 1: and so I remember being an unbelievable thing to get through.
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, what do you mean by unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I just loved her so much, and she's just kind
Speaker 1: of the you know, love of my life in a way.
Speaker 1: And the world doesn't stop and the sun doesn't stop shining,
Speaker 1: and it was meant to, you know, emotionally. It was
Speaker 1: hard for me to register, just to comprehend that you
Speaker 1: could be in a car going to a cremation service
Speaker 1: and see a family kind of like playing in the
Speaker 1: yard experiencing something so drastically different right in front of you,
Speaker 1: that other people could be experiencing joy, not even mildly,
Speaker 1: you know, like a beautiful summer day. And I remember
Speaker 1: that more than anything. And everything stopped, and I was
Speaker 1: very resentful that nothing stopped. That's kind of the most
Speaker 1: unnerving part of people dying in your life, which is
Speaker 1: that they mean so much. In your case, she meant everything,
Speaker 1: and yet the world continues on. You know. I had
Speaker 1: a hard time with that. Part of carrying on was
Speaker 1: wanting to get work, and um, yet it seemed so
Speaker 1: absurd to feel preoccupied by an audition for maybe a
Speaker 1: television show or something like that, or a beer commercial.
Speaker 1: It felt silly in contrast to yeah, what had happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just too It seemed too ridiculous. And I did.
Speaker 1: I did, kind of because I was kind of the
Speaker 1: plan was to stick it out in Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: having gotten my Buffy and like a theater award, you know,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, well, it's going really good
Speaker 1: for me in LA. I'll stay. But I think I
Speaker 1: understood that I didn't feel like it was it's not
Speaker 1: it's not I love LA, but it isn't necessarily almost
Speaker 1: nurture environment. You know. It can be nurturing in terms
Speaker 1: of like going to the beach and going hiking and
Speaker 1: shit like that, but emotionally it's a challenge, I think
Speaker 1: for everybody often, and so I understood pretty clearly that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I don't know that I was in jeopardy
Speaker 1: of not being able to process this, so I moved
Speaker 1: back to New York. You throw yourself into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the original goal was to go out there and to
Speaker 1: do theater and to be a real actor and everything
Speaker 1: like that, and so I must make meaning out of
Speaker 1: my life. Big mistake, A big mistake. New York is like, really,
Speaker 1: you're back? Yeah? And what back to? Back to the
Speaker 1: restaurant kid? Because I had graduated from in my yew
Speaker 1: and I had spent a really brutal year after my
Speaker 1: graduation waiting tables and not getting anything, and then being
Speaker 1: convinced to get out to LA and to give it
Speaker 1: a shot out there and getting you know, a sag
Speaker 1: job and testing for a pilot, etc. So when I
Speaker 1: went back to New York, you know, no matter what
Speaker 1: it is, whenever it comes down, I wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: dissuade anybody from being romantic about their lives or their goals.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't a very practical thing to do, and
Speaker 1: it felt like a really huge detour because I got
Speaker 1: dropped by my agents and I couldn't get arrested, and
Speaker 1: then nine to eleven happened, and it was just a
Speaker 1: really crazy, crazy, crazy time. You said once in an interview.
Speaker 1: I had to let go of so many ideas I
Speaker 1: had about what the pursuit of this career was going
Speaker 1: to be. It's a child's fantasy. There were opportunities. A
Speaker 1: close call started early for me, but it didn't pan out.
Speaker 1: You find yourself suddenly in your mid thirties and can't
Speaker 1: live off the next off Broadway show. Yeah, how did
Speaker 1: you keep going when nothing was working out? I was
Speaker 1: a waiter, a bad one. But how I got through
Speaker 1: it was friends and family. Really, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be too sentimental, but you know, my sister was there
Speaker 1: to bail me out of anything. She lived in New
Speaker 1: York for some of that, and I guess as an
Speaker 1: adult you develop your own family, which I had to do,
Speaker 1: and very very very very close relationships. There was just
Speaker 1: always somebody to bail me out and cheer me on,
Speaker 1: and so I don't really know, It's sort of like
Speaker 1: there was always just a little something to keep you going.
Speaker 1: I got to play. I remember losing my representation and
Speaker 1: there was an audition that had been scheduled before I
Speaker 1: got dropped, and I think the only reason that I
Speaker 1: had been submitted for it was because the character's first
Speaker 1: name was Pascal and it was a world premiere of
Speaker 1: a play at the Merrimack Repertory Theater in Lowell, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: outside of Boston. And I was like, well, when you
Speaker 1: got that sort of brutal phone call from the agent
Speaker 1: saying that we are no longer going to represent you,
Speaker 1: and you say, what about that appointment on Thursday? Do
Speaker 1: I still go? And they're like yeah, sure, So I
Speaker 1: went and I got that part, and I went to Lowell,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts to do this play. I think it was called Fallen.
Speaker 1: This incredible actress named Monique Fowler was in the play,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, we just became friends. She realized
Speaker 1: what my situation was and was like, I'll introduce you
Speaker 1: to my agent. I met him and went to an excellent,
Speaker 1: smaller kind of boutique agency, and that sort of got
Speaker 1: the ball rolling in terms of regional theater. I think
Speaker 1: the next thing was a play in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: At the Shakespeare Theater Company, and then a tiny theater
Speaker 1: in Cape Cod and I really started to do the
Speaker 1: regional thing. Went out to Oregon, did Massachusetts quite a
Speaker 1: few times, did DC quite a few times. So it
Speaker 1: was starting to come together piece by piece, yeah, piece
Speaker 1: play piece in terms of like very far away, you know,
Speaker 1: outside of the radar professional work, which again started to
Speaker 1: feel really important to me as far as these were
Speaker 1: big exciting wins. Also, I didn't have any experience in
Speaker 1: classical training and get cast in a production of a
Speaker 1: Hamlet or Troy Listen Cressida, and you know, sort of
Speaker 1: turned this professional environment into training grounds and that was cool.
Speaker 1: And then I got my first play in New York,
Speaker 1: an off Broadway premiere of Annilo Cruise play called The
Speaker 1: Beauty of the Father, And this was the first play
Speaker 1: produced in New York after he had just won the
Speaker 1: Pulitzer for an in the Tropics. Really big deal. Some
Speaker 1: nobody named Oscar Isaac was one of the other leads,
Speaker 1: and that got things sort of going within the off
Speaker 1: Broadway community a little bit. Took a long time to years.
Speaker 1: I'd gotten back to New York in August of one,
Speaker 1: went into rehearsals for that play in the winter of
Speaker 1: oh five, and those years in between felt like a lifetime.
Speaker 1: And even from five leading up to Game at Thrones
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen, You're putting it together piece by piece,
Speaker 1: somehow remaining undeterred by what I'm sure was an immense
Speaker 1: amount of failure and rejection, a long time front of
Speaker 1: yours and a great actor Sarah Paulson set of you.
Speaker 1: He has a rather righteous sense of self. When I
Speaker 1: look back at it now, I do know there was
Speaker 1: always this voice deep down inside of him that said,
Speaker 1: someday he was going to do what he wanted to
Speaker 1: do in the manner in which he wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: I wish she had told me that. She told The
Speaker 1: New York Times that because in the meantime she was
Speaker 1: like giving me her per diem cash to help me
Speaker 1: buy groceries. She bailed me out of so many things
Speaker 1: I can't tell you she made she very soon after
Speaker 1: my mother had passed. I didn't have a car in
Speaker 1: LA and she made her younger sister give me her car.
Speaker 1: I think that her sister had an alternative. But basically,
Speaker 1: those kinds of life saving moments, maybe that is the
Speaker 1: thing that unconsciously does kind of sort of keep you going,
Speaker 1: This sort of sense of stuff that she was able
Speaker 1: to identify. I had a really hard time identifying that
Speaker 1: you yourself. Yeah, for sure, what it started to feel
Speaker 1: like as you get older and start to get into
Speaker 1: your thirties and you're still doing this, and you're still
Speaker 1: going on auditions and everything, and you're not developed other skills.
Speaker 1: If you're me, I started to think, maybe it's too
Speaker 1: late to develop other skills. It's completely too late for
Speaker 1: me to develop other skills. And so it started to
Speaker 1: feel like a kind of ruthlessly practical way of living
Speaker 1: your life because it was what you knew how to do.
Speaker 1: I knew how to go on auditions. It was always
Speaker 1: just enough, you know, and there would be good months,
Speaker 1: bad months, good year, bad year, and eventually it just
Speaker 1: started to become a little bit more consistent. I've definitely
Speaker 1: felt it was sort of kind of a ceiling for
Speaker 1: me in New York that I wasn't really graduating from
Speaker 1: as far as the theater community was concerned. There were
Speaker 1: two plays that I was up for that I didn't
Speaker 1: get that would have been jobs through the winter of
Speaker 1: two thousand ten going into eleven. One was a revival
Speaker 1: of Angels in America at the Signature Theater, directed by
Speaker 1: Michael Gray, and they just didn't know where to put
Speaker 1: me in that. And then the other was I think
Speaker 1: they were moving a Merchant of Venice from the Park
Speaker 1: to Broadway didn't get either part, which meant that I
Speaker 1: was available for pilot season. I just started to throw
Speaker 1: my focus towards that in a really, really practical way,
Speaker 1: and again the dream sort of became maybe getting a
Speaker 1: regular gig on a series that could help pay the rent.
Speaker 1: The pilot season works out, you get a bunch of
Speaker 1: bit parts and episodic stuff and a whole bunch of shows.
Speaker 1: As we leave, I want to set with a couple
Speaker 1: of things when you get the game at their own role.
Speaker 1: I think somewhere in the middle of shooting, you're in Belfast,
Speaker 1: sitting in the Great Hall of the Red, keep watching
Speaker 1: this big enormous set around. You come alive and activate
Speaker 1: and you are part of it. When you're sitting there
Speaker 1: looking at the place you've landed, after all you had
Speaker 1: to go through to get to that moment, How do
Speaker 1: you say about that now? It's definitely like one of
Speaker 1: the best days I've ever had period period. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: set was beautiful, so many of the main players were there.
Speaker 1: I was sitting down instead of like it is key,
Speaker 1: instead of hanging from a cliffer or or you know,
Speaker 1: running or in the elements. You know what I said,
Speaker 1: you're sitting down and you have a view of everything
Speaker 1: from where I was sitting, all of the background players
Speaker 1: in their costumes. It was wonderful. It was wonderful. I
Speaker 1: definitely had to let go of expectations like that, really,
Speaker 1: you know, of that dream you had as a kid, Yeah,
Speaker 1: of having a job of that caliber, because again, like
Speaker 1: I say, like getting one of the Law in Order episodes,
Speaker 1: at the time, it felt like a really huge win.
Speaker 1: You know, the dream was sort of happening, and so
Speaker 1: the size of it just had just been so adjusted
Speaker 1: over the years. When I was a child, I dreamed
Speaker 1: of sitting in a chair on a show, in a
Speaker 1: scene like that, playing a part like that. I remember
Speaker 1: being kind of really triggered by the audition process of
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones because I hadn't made myself totally invulnerable
Speaker 1: to the desire for a role that could prove successful.
Speaker 1: But I had definitely created sort of a healthier expectation
Speaker 1: around work, and when that started to be challenged again,
Speaker 1: it really scared me. I was like, oh, gosh, I
Speaker 1: doesn't feel safe to want something as much as I
Speaker 1: want this, you know, I had learned that that's very
Speaker 1: painful because you had been disappointed too often. So we're
Speaker 1: starting in primal fear at the age of nineteen, and
Speaker 1: I'm like thirty eight at this point, and primal fear
Speaker 1: wasn't the only one you know, or many in between
Speaker 1: close calls and so being able to sit there and
Speaker 1: being like, gee, this I got this part. I'm doing
Speaker 1: this part. Yeah, it was a moment I really enjoyed,
Speaker 1: to say the least. It's like you had this childhood dream.
Speaker 1: The dream worked out a little bit and very quickly
Speaker 1: in your early twenties. Then the world kind of came
Speaker 1: crashing down on you, and it made you reset your expectations,
Speaker 1: and by the time you're in your early forties, you're
Speaker 1: thinking it's just too dangerous emotionally to want something again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but to bring it full circle, You've done so much
Speaker 1: in the last five years that childhood dream has been actualized.
Speaker 1: And yet I'm curious for you as we leave. Did
Speaker 1: you get what you wanted? Yeah? More than what I wanted.
Speaker 1: I think that you have to maintain a relationship to
Speaker 1: the innocence of your imagination and also parent it with
Speaker 1: reality and keep yourself in check, because nothing is ever
Speaker 1: enough if you aren't in a relationship to truth, whatever
Speaker 1: the hell that's supposed to mean. I was going to
Speaker 1: ask you, Yeah, what is truth? What is truth to
Speaker 1: you at this point you're forty seven now, or at
Speaker 1: the very least, what the hell is your truth? Be
Speaker 1: good to yourself and be good to people. If you
Speaker 1: want to do any good, you've got to be good,
Speaker 1: and that's going to start with yourself and those that
Speaker 1: are important to you. And I guess I would say
Speaker 1: that relationships and having good relationships is more important to
Speaker 1: me than everything that's been going on for the last
Speaker 1: five years. And I know that that's going to be
Speaker 1: the sustaining thing, so that's what I wanted. So it's
Speaker 1: it's a matter of staying in relationship to that and
Speaker 1: also to how fucking exciting it is for Nicholas Cage
Speaker 1: to be your scene partner in the first day work,
Speaker 1: you know, having been flown out of the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Apocalypse of the bed of like that it would of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and you know, in starting a shoot day
Speaker 1: in Debrevnik, Croatia, where your head was split open in
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones, like spitting distance from the arena where
Speaker 1: I shot that fight really pinched me kind of shit.
Speaker 1: It's always a challenge to remind yourself to kind of
Speaker 1: pinch yourself and to be like, oh, you know, things
Speaker 1: are kind of working out. And early on in this conversation,
Speaker 1: you said you were a little confused by by the
Speaker 1: fact that you and your sister were two of thirty
Speaker 1: four members of your family to remain in America at
Speaker 1: that time when you came here. I'm thinking about that
Speaker 1: now because you have this quote here. You said, I
Speaker 1: can't even imagine everything my parents had to go through
Speaker 1: when they escape from Chile, and that has left me
Speaker 1: with an inheritance of guilt that perhaps has determined the
Speaker 1: way in which my brothers and I navigate the world.
Speaker 1: That guilt that anyone who grows up with some privilege has,
Speaker 1: whether your parents fleet a you know, dictatorship or not,
Speaker 1: do you still carry that or are you now at
Speaker 1: this point in your life able to let it go.
Speaker 1: We carry it, you know, it's a it's a generational thing.
Speaker 1: I think in spite of what my parents went through,
Speaker 1: they were also very lucky. I think that they carry
Speaker 1: the guilt of the humble beginnings of their parents. It's
Speaker 1: very contradictory because I feel like they didn't set any limitations,
Speaker 1: because both my sisters and my brother have been kind
Speaker 1: of uncompromising in terms of what their pursuits are and
Speaker 1: how important their relationships are, and out of the four
Speaker 1: of us, maybe they would be very hurt to hear this.
Speaker 1: I'm so attached to them, like I cling to them
Speaker 1: so much, which for I guess obvious reasons. I wonder
Speaker 1: what it is about my parents that made us feel
Speaker 1: such permission to be and do what we want, And
Speaker 1: so I guess for that not to have the clearest shape,
Speaker 1: the most solid shape to just put in front of
Speaker 1: myself makes me It isn't guilt necessarily, but it is
Speaker 1: just sort of, you know, some kind of I don't know,
Speaker 1: some sort of like duty. Don't you know, be grateful.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, I wish I could, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: This isn't necessarily something that i've I've I've kind of
Speaker 1: like figured out what were you thinking? I was just
Speaker 1: thinking about the mystery of it in terms of how
Speaker 1: they're still sort of making sense of things and putting
Speaker 1: it all together and making shape of it so that
Speaker 1: you can kind of see it and just try to
Speaker 1: understand all of the events that have led to me
Speaker 1: just sitting in front of you and talking about it.
Speaker 1: I don't really know how to sit together or what
Speaker 1: it what it actually means. And I guess what I
Speaker 1: was just doing now is just kind of staring blankly
Speaker 1: at the mystery of what does it all mean? Oh God,
Speaker 1: this is the end, right, We've got to You've got
Speaker 1: to stop me. I'm just gonna stop talking so that
Speaker 1: I don't continue too hard on yourself. I know, God,
Speaker 1: I hear that a lot. Maybe that's part that's a goal.
Speaker 1: Something's hard on yourself. I don't know why your parents
Speaker 1: gave you the permission they did to be the creative
Speaker 1: person that you've become. But I think I speak for
Speaker 1: many people listening that I'm glad that they gave you
Speaker 1: that permission, and I'm grateful you've made good use of it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Sam, Are you okay? I am feeling vulnerable,
Speaker 1: but it's that's that's a good thing. Thank you for
Speaker 1: being vulnerable. Welcome Pedro, lovely Me, love me, say thank you,
Speaker 1: and that's our show. Special thanks to the team's at
Speaker 1: Anonymous Content Relevant pr lions Gate, and of course Pedro Pascal.
Speaker 1: His latest film, The unbearable weight of massive Talent is
Speaker 1: now available in theaters across the country. To learn more
Speaker 1: about Pedro and his work, visit our show notes at
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Speaker 1: new people to find the show as always, Talk Easy
Speaker 1: is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Jannick Sabravo.
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Caitlin Dryden. Today's talk was edited
Speaker 1: by Clarice Gavara and mixed by Andrew Vastola. Music by
Speaker 1: Dylan Peck, illustrations by Christia Chanoy, Photographs by Julius Chow,
Speaker 1: Video and graphics by Ian Chang, Derek gaberzach Ian Jones,
Speaker 1: Ethan Seneca and Laila Register. Special thanks to Patrice Lee,
Speaker 1: Kaylin Ung and shiloh'fagan. I'd also like to thank the
Speaker 1: team at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond, Julia Barton, John Schnars,
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Speaker 1: Malcolm Gladwell, and Jacob Weisberg. I'm San Fragoso, thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here
Speaker 1: next week with author Jennifer Egan. Until time, stay safe,
Speaker 1: and so on,