Pedro Pascal, the villain who fought against the woman in Wonder Woman 1984, wears a Mandalorian helmet and can transform into a Mandalorian and send Baby Yoda on the road. But the bounty hunter Ding Jarin in The Mandalorian may not be more legendary than Pedro himself. He had a distant relative of the former president of Chile, so he went into exile with his family to the United States, and as an adult, he floated in Hollywood for more than twenty years, including ten years, struggling on the "eighteenth line". The Mandalorians always believed that "this is the right way" and never took off their helmets, and Pedro, who persisted until he finally became a Mandalorian warrior.
In a dimly lit tavern on Tatooine, Jaku, or any star Wars planet, if a man with a mandalorian iron walks in, there's a good chance the scene will suddenly go quiet. His legend spread among the stars. His name was Ding Jarin, but few people knew his name, and they all called him The Mandalorian, either politely or pretending to be familiar, and called him The Mandalorian. There are not a few Mandalorians left in the world, most of them, in the Galactic Civil War, suffered the "Great Purge" of the Mandalorians by the Empire.
This Mandalorian is a legend. Like his legendary ancestors, he was "the best at killing people", and everyone who listened to him was frightened; he never took off his helmet and did not let others see his face; he was an orphan who was saved and raised by the Mandalorians, and grew up to be a well-known interstellar bounty hunter, killing people, killing monsters, robbing prisons, and doing everything that could earn money, but he also always adhered to the morality of the Mandalorians, and he did what he said and did what he did. Everywhere he walked, it was like a river and lake. Like the Mandalorians who often hang on their lips: "This is the right way." ”
The story of "The Mandalorian" has gone through nearly two seasons, and the face under the Mandalorian helmet has only been revealed once. It was Pedro Pascal's face.
That's right, Pedro Pascal, this Mandalorian, a shadow hunter of a bizarre background who never takes off his helmet.
This is the right path
Pedro was born in Chile in 1975. It was a bad time — two years ago, his distant uncle, Salvador Allende, the former president of Chile, passed away. If Allende had died, the Pedro family would have lived in peace, but he died in a military coup, and a grain of sand of the times can crush a person, not to mention this major event in the Cold War. This makes the Pedro family a natural enemy of the new president. In those two years, the political situation in Chile was turbulent, and the consolidation of the new regime was a hidden danger related to the old era.
Pedro was less than a year old when the crisis finally broke out. On this day, a priest took Pedro's cousin and hid in his house. This cousin, a confidant of Allende, suffered a leg wound — a gunshot wound. Like the rules of the Mandalorian Bounty Hunter Alliance, just carry out the task, do not have to ask more about cause and effect, Pedro's father did not say a word of nonsense, and hid the two people in the house. However, Papa is not for money, only for righteousness and affection. Hidden in the house along with the two men, as well as various guns and ammunition, were placed in Pedro's sister's house. At that time, Pedro's sister was just a three-year-old girl.
He who is righteous may not be able to reap the same righteous qi. The Mandalorians were also almost designed and captured by the Imperial Army. The priest did not resist and gave the name of Pedro's father. The Pedro family, who had been in hiding for months, sought refuge in the Venezuelan embassy and Denmark, and a few years later, eventually settled in the United States.
When Pedro talks about all this now, it is like talking about a long-ago family legend, which is almost as old and magical as the legend of Mandalorian, and this story has indeed passed for more than forty years, and the relatives of the former president have become the "prince" of people's mouths (because they play the red viper of the prince of the Kingdom of Dorne in "Game of Thrones"). He mentioned the story with pride in his tone. Who knows what is going on in the temple, but in terms of morality, for Pedro the Mandalorian, perhaps this is "the right way."
Mandalorian practice
The United States took in the Pedro family. In peacetime, Pedro didn't have to learn the killing techniques of various Mandalorians here, as Ding Jaring did during the Star Wars uprising. What he learned was film. According to Pedro's own words, his mother used the movie theater as a "nursery", sending him every day and picking him up at six o'clock in the afternoon. The grown-ups are thinking that in this way, children can integrate into American culture as quickly as possible, but for Pedro, the movie itself is more magical.
At the age of four, the family went to see Superman. To say that this pair of parents, as always big-hearted, see half, Pedro pee urgent, they may be watching the film is concentrating, just call this four-year-old child, go to the toilet alone. Sure enough, I got lost. By the time mom found Pedro again, he had turned to another screening room and fell asleep in the plot of Mr. and Mrs. Kramer. The movie has ended, and neither "Superman" nor "The Kramers" has waited for Pedro.
Of course, children still love to watch "Superman". Sister flaunted: Superman this, that, and then he brought the earth back to order! Pedro is certainly not convinced: "The Kramers" is also like this! But isn't that the case — the movie is nothing more than messing up order and restoring order. Worthy of being a child who grew up in the movie theater, he saw through the essence of "Mr. and Mrs. Kramer" at a glance. This movie about marriage can't be seen by people who have been trapped in the siege for decades, but the four-year-old child has broken the sky in one word.
This day-to-day film training allowed Pedro to cultivate into a Mandalorian who was "best at movies". It may be a joke that the four-year-old understands "The Kramers," but his understanding of the film is indeed more sensitive to loneliness than every Mandalorian who lurks in the shadows. When they were 13 or 4 years old, the family moved to Orange County. Pedro did not adapt to the new environment, so he hid alone and secretly watched more movies, including "Spring Supper" and "The Graduate", which are full of life experience. Even parents worry that this child will not see anything wrong with the movie, right?
He is also always a film champion among his peers. These good friends call him nerd, because every day, he doesn't know what strange and unpopular movies he is tinkering with, and he knows how to compare the soundtrack and behind-the-scenes stories. Since junior high school, he has been collecting film soundtracks. At the age of 18, he dragged Sarah Paulson and eight other friends to the movies, and several people originally just wanted to come and visit, and it was Pedro who recommended them, and they must see this "Fearless Love". Seeing the end, all eight people shed tears in the theater.
In another universe, the legend circulating between the stars will be that there is a Mandalorian, "the best at movies", all the knowledge points related to movies, hundreds of shots; the taste of movies, tricky and eccentric.
Bounty hunters
After learning the teacher, it is time for the Mandalorian to go to the task and ask for money. But Pedro's bounty hunter path didn't go well. The first task he wanted to take was the child in "First Level Fear" who hid a small demon inside his body but looked like an angel. That audition, of course, was a failure. The one who became an interstellar legend through that movie was Edward Norton.
It wasn't a good time for a minority like Pedro. In the words of his good friend Oscar Isaac, "How many more gang members are we to be given?" "They're responsible for putting a little bit of exoticism and gangsterism to the background board of the story. According to him, "After failing to audition for Level 1 Fear, I was an unemployed vagabond for ten years. ”
For many years, Pedro has played countless eighteen small roles in various film and television dramas. But even for this kind of role, he was happy. Because "with such a role, you can afford to pay the rent for a while." He was really like a tired bounty hunter, constantly taking work so that he could have a mouthful of food, and he almost licked the blood on the tip of the knife. Several times, he almost went to the streets, but he could always get a small advertisement or play a role in a small stage play. This, presumably, is the Force with him.
In order to get more roles, Pedro changed his surname. His original surname was Balmassett, and he was long and tongue-twisting, and the casting directors had to stumble when they read it, let alone remember that there was such a person. He used his mother's surname "Pascal" to walk the rivers and lakes, and even almost changed his name, thinking that from Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander", he changed his name to Alexander Pascal. As long as more casting directors can remember, anything goes.
In the end he didn't change the name that was too much like a scientist. Fortunately, the times have changed, the voice of Hollywood's diverse groups has gradually become louder, like the villain army of "Star Wars" overthrew the empire, changed the world, and the small group of Mandalorians finally had the opportunity to emerge.
The Mandalorian Creed
The change, of course, began in Game of Thrones, with the red viper character.
Regardless of the audience's resentment about the bad end of this epic series, the red viper died at the best time. It is at the peak of the series, the prince from the kingdom of Dorne, does not talk about red tape, but is dashing in the world, to say, it is really a bit of Wei And Jin style.
Magic Mountain, the guardian of Empress Cersei, is a "mutant" transformed by a bachelor, and his combat power is extremely powerful. But the red poisonous snake wants to fight him, because there is no revenge, not a gentleman. The magic mountain killed his sister, and the red viper wanted to win him over with honor and justice, and then asked him to confess his sins. It seems to be a wandering skeleton, which is not well rated in the continent of Westeros, but it is more than anyone else. But in "Game of Thrones", those who don't play power plots are going to die, they have to fall, and they die the most tragically - the red viper has to win, and when he asks about the crime of the magic mountain, one is not careful, and is poked in the eyes and dies.
If there is any flaw in this role, that is, the fans brush the message under the stills, the role is too little, such a tragic death, it is worth adding more drama.
Before the audition, Pedro was still the little actor who struggled to pay the rent. David Benioff, writer and executive producer of Game of Thrones, received audition tapes for the young actor. Honestly, most of the crew have not received such a simple audition tape for a long time. "First of all, it's a phone selfie, which is very unusual. Moreover, it is not a new model of mobile phone, the camera lens is not good, the effect of shooting is too, or vertical screen shooting, everything is too amateurish - except for the performance, the performance is too wonderful, too credible, just right. ”
The practice of this Mandalorian was not in vain. Maybe he didn't have a good Mandalorian iron to make equipment before, but his kung fu has arrived home. A more notable example is Benman of The Mandalorian. In the two seasons of the series, a dozen episodes in total, Pedro only showed his face once. The moves that an actor can make are nothing more than expressions, limbs, and language. Wearing a cover is tantamount to cutting off your arms, and even the sound is specially treated. This is called the Golden Globe Awards, and a new rule has been established for this role: performers with only voices cannot compete for the performance award.
Many actors will be intimidated by this "broken hands and feet" performance, but the real Mandalorians will not. In the years when Pedro was begging for life, he acted in a lot of stage plays, performing eight times a week, and each time he thought about those few actions, he thought about how to show a few actions. He had no other weapons, no Mandalorian iron, only physical performances. He had long since become a Mandalorian in those years.
Perhaps coincidentally, in recent years, his main roles have a particularly tone and unswerving creed. In "Game of Thrones", the wandering skeleton has revenge; in "Ace Agent 2: The Golden Circle", he is the American agent "whiskey", not as good as the British agent, is another cowboy temperament, but as a "trump agent", the lack of courtesy, invincibility, are the same; in "Three Borders", he and Kiyou Pascal and others are all hormonal veterans, with self-discipline honed in the military...
Looking back now, it makes people want to learn the Mandalorian sigh: This is the right way. And Pedro himself, indeed, has never taken off the helmet of "movie". He persevered, and finally won himself the protagonist of the series of big IP such as the "Star Wars" series, as well as the crushing villain in "Wonder Woman 1984", and the director of "Wonder Woman 1984" Patty Jenkins even said that his villain's performance would completely change the "drama throwing face" situation he started from "Narcos". Pedro, a Mandalorian, has always believed in the Right Way of Mandalorian. From being a little older than a Yoda baby and being sent to the cinema by his mother to let it grow, even later, after entering the film circle, countless times he did not take up the next meal, countless times received Latino stereotypes of the role, he never took off that helmet. Cinema is his credo, and this is the "right way" for this Mandalorian.