When Pedro Pascal was a 26-year-old struggling actor, he moved into a cheap, one-bedroom apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn. For much of the past 15 years, he strung together rent in the time-honored New York tradition of waiting tables and booking the occasional guest spot on “Law & Order.”

By his mid-30s, Pascal, who studied acting at New York University, was finally gaining steam, with recurring parts in “The Good Wife” and “Brothers & Sisters.” But the real tipping point arrived when Pascal was cast as sexually voracious swordsman Oberyn Martell in Season 4 of “Game of Thrones,” a part he found out about when a young actor he was mentoring auditioned for it. Pascal put himself on tape and sent it to his friend, Sarah Paulson, whose best friend, Amanda Peet, happens to be married to “Game of Thrones” showrunner David Benioff.

The part opened up a wave of opportunities for Pascal, who was born in Chile but raised in Texas and Orange County, Calif. The 42-year-old can currently be seen in an expanded role as DEA Agent Javier Pena in the Netflix drama “Narcos” and as Whiskey, a lasso-wielding secret agent in “Kingsman: The Golden Circle.”

The following is an edited transcript.

Q: The story of how you got cast on “Game of Thrones” is pretty amazing. What made you so sure you were right for Oberyn?

A: He was dangerous. I’m not dangerous, but I have a sharp nose. I will probably be playing bad guys forever because of my face. There was something so sexy about the character. One of the things that the creators told me was, just by mention of his bisexuality, there was a flamboyance the actors started to attribute to the character in their auditions. That never occurred to me. He seemed so male to me. The fact that he was bisexual had nothing to do with his exterior persona. I loved him as much as (showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss) did, and they saw that.

Q: Has working on “Narcos” changed your understanding of the war on drugs?

A: The specific Colombian history of these violent years breaks my heart a little bit. These are incredible people who feel that they can’t really escape this association of being a narco state. I don’t like the idea of advancing a sensationalist portrait of the drugs and the violence and the extravagance, though I know it fascinates and should be told as authentically as the budget can afford. But the violent association with Latino culture is an intense contrast to what it is to be Latino. It’s not part of my experience at all.

Q: “Kingsman” looks like it was a lot of fun to make.

A: It was a very surreal blast. I had a complete magical love affair with London. I was in trailers next to Halle Berry and Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges. It was too ridiculous to be terrifying, although it was a little terrifying.

meredith.blake@latimes.com