The 'pascalmanía', the phenomenon that has made Pedro Pascal the best ambassador of Chile

The actor Pedro Pascal shows his Chilean passport on his Instagram account.pascalispunk (RR SS)

On the 1,000 Chilean pesos bill (1.2 dollars) appears the face of Captain Ignacio Carrera Pinto, who died in the Pacific War at the end of the 19th century.

This week, on one of those tickets, the national hero did not appear, but the actor Pedro Pascal.

The work of art was created by the Argentine cartoonist Sergio Guillermo Diaz within the framework of the global phenomenon that has been unleashed around the most famous star in the world, according to the iMDb (Internet Movie DataBase) ranking.

The attention paid to the interpreter has echoed especially in Chile, the country where he was born and from which his family had to flee during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

His compatriots celebrate the professional success he has achieved in Hollywood, but his deepest pride seems to burst every time he does, says or wears something typical Chilean.

It happens frequently:

.

“What's wrong with people who like an old man like me?

I don't understand, what has happened culturally?

Let them focus on Harry Styles, ”Pedro Pascal responded when asked what he felt about being the“ new internet boyfriend ”, in an interview with

.

But people are overwhelmingly more aware of the Chilean actor than the British singer.

So far in March, international publications (media and open social network accounts) about Pedro Pascal reached 210,000, 107% more than in the same period of the previous month, while those that revolved around Harry Styles were 154,000, according to the metrics managed by the Fundación Marca Chile, which is in charge of promoting the country beyond its borders.

Actor Pedro Pascal wears a T-shirt with the design of a fist in the colors of the Chilean flag during his appearance on Saturday Night Live, in February 2023.NBC

José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal is the second of the four children of the child psychologist Verónica Pascal – from whom Pedro took his first last name – and the doctor José Balmaceda Riera.

His parents, supporters of the socialist president Salvador Allende, went into exile in Denmark in 1975, where they lived for a year before moving to the United States.

Pascal was a baby and has not returned to live in the South American country.

The celebrity seems an obligatory topic in Chile.

The political analyst Alfredo Joignant reflected on the phenomenon a few days ago on Twitter: “The

that has been unleashed in Chile is impressive.

True, Pedro Pascal is the first Chilean to have truly succeeded in Hollywood.

But I see and read a special affection and admiration for him (into which I myself fall): perhaps his modesty, and his charming Chileanisms ”.

Part of the Chilean

has to do with the fact that he is not an actor whose link with the country must be caught by the hair, as happened in his day with Jorge García, the interpreter of Hurley in the Lost

.

Pascal has maintained his relationship with the large family that stayed in Chile: every summer of his childhood and youth he visited them during vacations in Pucón, one of the most beautiful tourist areas in La Araucanía, located almost 800 kilometers from Santiago.

His cousin, the journalist Paula Coddou, told the newspaper

in 2017 that since Pedro made a name for himself in

and

the relatives began to pay more attention to him.

The chat of the 34 cousins ​​is called

in reference to this anecdote.

The actor himself joked about the matter when he hosted the top American comedy show,

.

“My family is proud of me.

They give my number to everyone, ”he said about the daily requests from Chileans asking for greetings, inviting him to weddings and asking about

.

“I love you, I miss you, and please stop giving out my personal number,” Pascal added with a laugh in the monologue.

He closed the night wearing a shirt with a cuff that had the Chilean flag painted on it.

In addition to emotional ties, the protagonist of

and

perfectly understands the Creole codes, such as the absolute devotion to the avocado, as the avocado is known in Chile.

For the same reason, he aroused so much pride when he participated in a competition between Chilean and American food on the YouTube channel

together with producer Jon Favreau.

In one of the tests, Pascal asked the presenter of the space if what he was trying was avocado.

he is

[avocado in English], she replied, to which Pascal responded by settling the issue: "It's avocado."

The Twitter account of the Royal Spanish Academy entered the debate by uploading an image of the fruit: "Is it called avocado or avocado?

The majority form is avocado, but avocado and avocado are also used in certain countries of America, and pagua/pahua for a specific variety”.

The keywords in national publications about the actor are "best ambassador" and "recognized actor", according to the Fundación Marca Chile.

Internationally, social media posts and mentions have climbed 355% in the past six months.

The keywords are

(the HBO series where he played Prince Oberyn Martell) and

, in relation to the character's sexual orientation.

El Nuevo

magazine dubbed him

, arouses so many passions that Chileans furiously took to the networks to defend their

when foreign publications made mention of their Spanish origins.

In the middle of the debate, José Balmaceda, the actor's father, had to go out and put cold cloths on and explain that his son "is Chilean through and through", but that his grandmother is Spanish, born in Mallorca, and his four great-grandparents were Spanish people.

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