Pedro Pascal Interviews His Sister Lux Pascal in ELLE’s 2025 October Issue

Pin

In an exclusive feature for the October 2025 issue of ELLE, Pedro Pascal interviews his sister, Lux Pascal, where she discusses her brother’s endless support, the reboot they would make together and what she learned from their parents.

“I am the luckiest girl in the f**king world,” the actress says of being Pedro Pascal’s sister. But as her big brother is quick to point out, Lux has much more to celebrate than that, like earning her MFA from Juilliard in 2023, appearing in series like Netflix’s NARCOS, and now, starring in her first lead feature film role in the drama MISS CARBÓN. “There isn’t s**t that you could do if you weren’t you,” Pedro tells his sister. “This is his protective side coming out,” Lux jokes.

While she might brush off her sibling’s praise, Pascal, 33, is undeniably having a moment in the spotlight. MISS CARBÓN (Queen of Coal) is already out in Spain, and is heading to Netflix later this year. In the biopic, she plays Carlita Antonella Rodríguez, a transgender woman who broke barriers to become the first female coal miner in her hometown of Río Turbio, Argentina. After MISS CARBÓN, Pascal will next be seen in the indie dark comedy LOVE & CHAOS, her first Hollywood film.

On playing Carlita Rodriguez, a trans woman, in MISS CARBÓN, Lux shares: “Maybe I don’t have to play her as a trans part. I’m just playing this person, this woman, and, I get to search all of these circumstances, and I also have the practical privilege and joy to be in every single scene, so it’s just going to be such a learning experience. I’m only going to be better after this. Whatever the world is obsessed with after I do it—and I’m always going to be reduced to my identity, and who knows the parts that I’ll be doing in the future—I learned so much from it.”

Pin

Pin

On perseverance, work ethic and leading with generosity:

PP: …. I am curious, what is the biggest lesson you learned from our parents? Not that it could be singled down to one thing.

LP: I guess perseverance, right?

PP: H**l yeah.

LP: Resilience. And honestly, work ethic. Also, treat other people that you’re working with with the utmost generosity, and try to be really selfless at work. Our mom passed away when I was really young, so I didn’t get to experience her line of work as much, but our dad—I was always amazed by how professional he was in every context, and how he would always try to make room for people. Like, people aren’t working for you in any situation. You are working for them as much as they are working for you, and I always try to remember that.

On sibling advice and holding each other up:

PP: What’s the best advice we’ve ever received from and given each other?

LP: You have to answer that one first.

PP: Something different every day. Especially in a period where I am facing existential issues around age, you’re the first person to empower me and to give me confidence, to the point where your lack of patience for it is what gives me confidence. Because you’re just like, “Enough is enough. You’re the s**t,” and you’re the person I believe the most, so that keeps me going.

LP: For me, I just remember this one moment. I don’t want to give too much context about it, but I just called you crying and you were just saying no, shaking your head. Because I was telling you about what was making me cry, but you were just like, ‘Just be yourself. People will see it eventually. Just be yourself.’ And I was just like, Yes, he’s right.

On Lux falling in love with acting:

PP: There’s something in our genes as a family—we love movies. I know that you fell in love with acting probably earlier than I could have ever known, and I’m wondering if there’s a clear memory of that time?

LP: It’s all in the mix. Just being around your presence every time you would come to visit us in Chile. Aside from you being my brother, I was like, This person is just so exciting to be around. I remember the games that we would play together, they just felt so real. I remember you being a monster and you were chasing me, but it just felt so thrilling. It was like being at the best roller coaster or haunted house.

PP: We would play tiburón [shark] in the pool.

LP: We would play tiburón in the pool because of the obsession with Jaws. That sense of thrill and being able to play so authentically was instilled in me as a child, and I was like, I love living in a world where I get to imagine and play.

On the moment Lux ‘came out’ as an actress:

LP: We were raised by such a perfectionist father who always wanted us to be at our best. I had good grades in school, so I had a lot of options. But the idea of actually sitting down, listening to a teacher, and writing notes was just so depressing to me that I stood up to Dad and said, “I’m also going to be an actress.” And if I want to change careers because it’s not something that I am actually capable of doing, then I’ll do it, but I want to try.

PP: It was just a matter of having to “come out” [laughs] as an actress. Was Dad resistant to you studying theater?

LP: I think he naturally was scared. Because back then we had only you as a reference, and you were really going through it with your career.

PP: He’s like, “Please don’t end up like your brother!” [Laughs]

LP: We can be funny about it, but it was tough to see someone that you love trying to accomplish their dreams. It’s all about patience, about hard work. I think that Dad looked at me and was like, “Oh my God, she’s really obsessed with this thing and she’s really working hard.” It was in the doing that he recognized who I was.

On landing Miss Carbón and meeting her character in real life:

LP: I was just graduating from Juilliard, and I had put all my heart in that, in finishing in the best way possible so that I could feel good about myself. But I was being chased by the production company of Miss Carbón and by the director [Agustina Macri]. She sent me a really beautiful note, and I didn’t respond because I was just like, I can’t think about anything else but graduating from this school.

PP: Oh my gosh. You are good. I would’ve been like, “Byeeee!”

LP: “I didn’t take it seriously until I read the script, and then I met the real Carlita—the woman the story’s based on—and I was like, Oh, I am in love with her. She has this presence and this light in her eyes that actually make me want to cry because it’s so f**king inspiring. I understand she is someone who has followed her heart throughout the hostility, and I was just like, I want to be her.”

PP: Where did you meet Carlita?

LP: I first met her through Zoom, and I saw this magic coming through my computer. But then I met her—she actually flew to Spain, where we were shooting. When I held her, when I hugged her—I can still feel the knot in my throat—I was like, I know this woman. Specifically, I know this woman, but I’m not this woman.

LP: That’s what I want people to know. It is kind of degrading when people say, “Oh, there’s so much you have in common.” I was like, “What is it exactly that we have in common?”

PP: Yeah. You never worked in a mine.

LP: You know? Everything is different circumstances, but the dignity of transness is that we get to be different individuals, have different stories, and connect through other places that we have in common. And I would never treat her as “this other trans person I know.” She’s my sister, but there are so many other things that connect me to her other than, “Oh, we both changed our names in our IDs.” That’s just a bureaucratic process.

PP: Me emocionó. Because I get annoyed that it needs to be qualified in any way. That we have to dig through all this s**t to get to the truth of it, which is really the artistry of playing a role, and the beauty of meeting the human that you’re playing. The obvious way of connecting the two of you is one of an entire collage of things that make you completely f**king different, and yet somehow you find each other and see each other. In truth, you’re far more different than you are alike, which is what’s so incredible about your performance.

On Pedro and Lux’s dream reboot:

PP: “If we could star in any reboot together, what would it be? Daddy Dearest?”

LP: “Oh my God. Except, how would it be? Because I’m Joan Crawford.”

PP: “Otherwise, it would be like…a sibling version of Thelma & Louise?”

LP: “Wait a second. You found it.”

Pedro Pascal Interviews His Sister Lux Pascal for ELLE’s 2025 October Issue

[Photo Credit: Rona Liana Ahdout for ELLE Magazine]

• Editorials
• ELLE
• Lux Pascal
• Magazines
• Moses Moreno
• Pedro Pascal
• Rona Liana Ahdout