Pedro Pascal opens up about managing his anxiety after quick rise to stardom

Pedro Pascal has found a simple way to manage his anxiety.

The 50-year-old actor spoke candidly about his mental health during an interview with Men’s Health, published Wednesday. He said that engaging with other people makes him feel better when he has anxiety, which is something he realized during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I notice, especially during this period of the summer 2020, and the kind of isolation and how long my FaceTimes were, and my phone conversations, that I had started to make an effort to engage more, having previously lost that option in many ways,” he said. “I can think back on high school, and college, and I was always such a talker with friends. Conversations on the phone, and then I don’t know how many days had gone by where we stopped doing that.”

The Eddington star explained how fortunate he was to have built strong connections during the challenging moments of the pandemic. And he’s continued to hold “onto” those relationships “very much.”

However, he’s also tried to find other ways to manage his anxiety, which have not been as successful.

“I was always one to reach out when I’m facing something that is challenging or making me anxious,” Pascal added. “I definitely kind of stopped doing that, and instead I’m doomscrolling, or looking for something to watch; looking for different ways to disassociate from the feeling I’m having.”

He said that when he “started to feel so critical” of himself during anxious moments, he realized that it was really his loved ones that he needed for support.

“I had to go back to what was always the comfort for me in life, which was engagement in my relationships, my friendships, and conversation and shared experience,” he concluded.

Pascal has had a rapid rise to stardom over the last two years. He made his return as one of the leads in season two of the HBO series The Last of Us, which came out earlier this year. He has starred in many 2025 hit films, including Ari Aster’s Eddington and Celine Song’s The Materialists. He’s also the lead in Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which comes out Friday.

The actor has previously opened up about becoming famous later in his life. “Stepping into my 40s felt adult and empowered. Fifty felt more vulnerable—much more vulnerable,” he said during an interview with Vanity Fair last month. “More so, more so. What a silly thing for a 50-year-old man—to have all this attention! This is such shadow-voice s***, you know what I mean?”

He also opened up about struggling to get hired in his thirties, when he “was supposed to have a career.”

“Past 29 without a career meant that it was over, definitely,” he said. However, his sister Javiera Balmaceda — who’s now a producer at Amazon Studios — said that his brother’s family still encouraged him to continue acting.

“When Pedro would say, ‘I’m going to nursing school’ or ‘I’m going to be a theater teacher,’ it was just like ‘No, no, no, no! You’re too good!’” she said. “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.”