The movie Pedro Pascal’s father banned him from watching: “I was not allowed”
There are many kids who were raised on movies that their parents told them not to watch. In many ways, it’s a part of growing up, with certain stories possessing a magnetic appeal that pulls us towards them, even if we have to break the rules to watch them. It could be private watches of The Terminator as a seven-year-old or sleepover marathons of the Twilight movies as a teenager, even if your parents think it’s far too inappropriate. Or it could be sneaky trips to Blockbuster in which you pretend to be twelve in order to see horror movies that, in retrospect, really aren’t that scary.
But these memories are sometimes the most formative in our movie-watching lifetime, with years from our childhood in which we were completely mesmerised by stories that we were initially told not to watch, becoming a thrilling memory of rebellion and inspiration. For Pedro Pascal, this was perhaps something that also informed his desire to become an actor, describing the one film he was banned from watching that had a strong chokehold over him as a young person.
Pascal has had one of the biggest comebacks of all time, with a rabid fanbase that adores his every move. After starring in the HBO adaptation of The Last of Us, the actor suddenly skyrocketed to the top of the industry again after early roles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Game of Thrones, leading to a renaissance that hasn’t died down since.
With upcoming roles in The Materialists, Eddington and the latest Fantastic Four reboot, the actor is booked and busy, with a passion for filmmaking that perhaps sparked from those early memories of illicit film watching. Pascal described his fascination with The Breakfast Club as a kid, something that isn’t surprising given that he grew up in the eighties and John Hughes was the definitive 1980s coming-of-age director.
The Breakfast Club continues to speak to audiences today, even despite its very questionable style of humour and problematic narratives, with the unlikely friendship and vulnerability between these teenagers still tugging on our heart strings. While Pascal might love the film, it was a tough journey for him to actually watch it, with his father forbidding him from watching it due to its rebellious thematic strands.
When describing this, Pascal said, “I was not allowed to see The Breakfast Club in the movie theatre. He was like, ‘These are a bunch of kids complaining about their parents.’ And he’s like, ‘Fuck that.’ But The Breakfast Club was rated R, and I wasn’t allowed to see it until it came out on VHS, and I still wasn’t allowed to see it because I was on the pulse of this movie. I needed to see this movie. And he’s like, ‘No.’ But then they couldn’t find a babysitter. And I was like ten, and my sister must have been 12. And they’re like, ‘Uh, OK. You can watch The Breakfast Club. We’re going to rent it for you, just put it in the VCR and then rewind it and start it over and just keep watching it.’”
While it might have been a long journey to finally watch it, perhaps it was more crucial in his cinematic education than he realised at the time. That slow-burning interest culminated in something much bigger as he pursued a career in the very art form that had so fascinated him since the beginning.
