{"id":111242,"date":"2026-04-08T13:59:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T13:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=111242"},"modified":"2026-04-08T14:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:05:12","slug":"lux-pascal-grazia-spring-summer-2026-cover-story","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/lux-pascal-grazia-spring-summer-2026-cover-story\/","title":{"rendered":"GRAZIA USA Spring\/Summer Cover Star: Lux Pascal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lux
Lux Pascal for GRAZIA USA Spring\/Summer 2026 Issue. Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello dress, tights, ysl.com; Bvlgari High Jewelry earrings, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Words by Fiorella Valdesolo<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In the 1950s and \u201960s designer Pierre Balmain called some of the most celebrated actresses of the era like Katharine Hepburn, Sophia Loren, and Rita Hayworth regular clients. The legendary couturier wasn\u2019t just outfitting them for red-carpet events; he was also often dressing them for their performances on screen and on stage. When Loren played Epifania, the wealthiest woman in the world in Peter Sellers\u2019s 1960 rom-com The Millionaress<\/em>, it was Balmain\u2019s belted black leather dress and knee-length cinched cream tulle shrouded in pearls and crystals that telecasted her wealth and status. For Hepburn\u2019s turn as the same character on the London stage, she too was dressed by Balmain, most memorably in an opulent embroidered gown with long matching gloves.<\/p>\n

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Balenciaga dress, shoes, balenciaga.com; Bvlgari Allegra necklace, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The iconic fashion house\u2019s cinematic legacy is one that actress (and occasional model) Lux Pascal was thinking about when she was, at the behest of the newest designer at its helm, Antonin Tron, sitting front row next to Naomi Watts at his highly anticipated March debut. The show was a femme fatale-coded master class in sensual power dressing with whiffs of The Hunger <\/em>and Blade<\/em> Runner <\/em>and even Epifania\u2019s black leather fit as worn by Loren in 1960. \u201cHe told me that he was inspired by the brand\u2019s post-war beginnings and how old Hollywood glamour might be translated in the 1980s,\u201d says Pascal, who was photographed wearing a long slip skirt and plunging button-down, with a lace bodysuit peeking out. \u201cI had four different looks they had prepared for me to wear, and I was just beaming trying on each one. I felt like a movie star from a classic film noir.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Marc Jacobs top, marcjacobs.com; Bvlgari Serpenti Viper ring, Serpenti Viper bracelets, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fashion and film have a symbiotic relationship for Pascal, stretching back to when she was a kid enthralled with cinema growing up in Chile. \u201cI\u2019ve always been inspired by the silhouettes I saw in the movies,\u201d says Pascal, who even in sweats and zero makeup via Zoom exudes an easy elegance. \u201cI would try to replicate what the actresses were wearing,\u201d she adds, citing favorites like the dramatic, color-saturated looks of David Lynch\u2019s Mulholland Drive <\/em>or the romanticism of Sofia Coppola\u2019s Virgin Suicides<\/em>. Fashion\u2019s ability to shape and morph how someone presents themselves to the world, how it can be the ultimate vehicle for inhabiting a character, even one radically different from who you are, has long intrigued Pascal. And since tiptoeing into the public eye in the last few years, the fashion world, for all its exclusive pretense, has felt to Pascal incredibly welcoming. This season she was sitting front row at Balmain and Bottega Veneta, and last she was walking the runway for Matthieu Blazy\u2019s inaugural collection for Chanel.<\/p>\n

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Chanel jacket, skirt, sunglasses, shoes; 800-550-0005; Bvlgari High Jewelry necklace, Serpenti Viper bracelet, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lux
Chanel jacket, skirt, sunglasses, shoes; 800-550-0005; Bvlgari High Jewelry necklace, Serpenti Viper bracelet, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lux
Ferragamo dress, ferragamo.com; Bvlgari High Jewelry necklace, Serpenti Viper bracelet, Serpenti Viper ring, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lux
Marc Jacobs top, marcjacobs.com; Bvlgari Serpenti Viper earrings, Serpenti Viper bracelets, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But Pascal\u2019s love of fashion is born of her love of cinema, something fostered both by her older brother Pedro (17 years her senior, he would regularly dispatch VHS tapes back to his youngest sibling in Chile; she also has another brother and sister) and her father, Jos\u00e9 Balmaceda, a reproductive endocrinologist. \u201cMy dad was a major movie fan,\u201d Pascal shares. \u201cGrowing up I would go with him to the movies at least once a week, maybe twice. Some days we would even leave one movie, go have lunch, and then go back to the theater and see another.\u201d She was born in Orange County, California, where her parents had eventually retreated (after a stint in Denmark) after being forced into political exile from Chile during Augusto Pinochet\u2019s reign; they returned to Chile when she was three. Her mother, Ver\u00f3nica Pascal, a child psychologist, died a few years later in 1999. \u201cOne of my last memories of my mom was making pottery with her,\u201d recalls Pascal. In her final years, Ver\u00f3nica had started making art in earnest (ceramics, painting, collages, poetry) and developed, says her daughter, a signature aesthetic. \u201cMy mother was very attuned, very sensitive, a really sophisticated being,\u201d Pascal says, smiling softly. The loss is one that is still deeply felt by her and her siblings; both she and Pedro use their mother\u2019s last name as an homage.<\/p>\n

\u201cDance and learning how to center my body taught me so much about being on stage.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though watching movies laid the groundwork, Pascal\u2019s path to acting was bumpy at first. Always a model student, when she enrolled in a demanding theater program at the Pontificia Universidad Cat\u00f3lica de Chile, she had difficulties. \u201cI wasn\u2019t used to being on stage, and it felt very awkward to me,\u201d Pascal confesses. But her determination and fierce work ethic trumped her awkwardness; a foray into dance, thanks to a choreographer who took her under her wing and whose company she would eventually perform with, helped immensely too. \u201cDance and learning how to center my body taught me so much about being on stage,\u201d says Pascal.<\/p>\n

After graduating, her professional life started almost immediately. Pascal was dancing, performing in theater productions, and appearing in films and TV series including Narcos<\/em>; she was busy but felt like when it came to acting, she had a lot more to learn. So, she auditioned for the Juilliard School, got in, and uprooted her life to move to New York to attend what is arguably the most prestigious arts university in the world. Because she had the privilege of matriculating when she had already had a career, she felt like she was able to enjoy the experience of being in school. With a container to learn and grow as an artist, Pascal put her head down and focused intently on mastering what she had come to love. \u201cI took that shit so seriously that I was passing on every single professional opportunity that was being offered to me even when my managers were like, maybe you should go for this role because it\u2019s a big deal,\u201d says Pascal, her big brown eyes widening.<\/p>\n

The opportunity to play the lead in Netflix\u2019s Miss Carb\u00f3n (Queen of Coal)<\/em>, an Argentinian film about the story of Carla Antonella Rodriguez, a trans woman who was the first female miner in Patagonia, came at the end of her graduating year. Director Agustina Macri\u2019s sole choice for the role of Carla was Pascal. \u201cI was like I\u2019ll pay attention to this when I\u2019m done with school, and if she\u2019s still interested in me, I\u2019m interested,\u201d she adds. Macri waited, and Pascal was cast after graduation. Her turn as Carla is exceptional. Pascal has an openness and quiet power that is riveting to watch on screen. While Miss Carb\u00f3n <\/em>is at its core a story about transness, it\u2019s just as much a story about women and power and the workplace, and the ones who risk everything with steely determination for what they believe is right. Carrying on in the tradition of Sally Field in Norma Rae <\/em>and Charlize Theron in North Country<\/em>, Pascal in Miss Carb\u00f3n <\/em>is a force of nature. Meeting the real Carla convinced her to take the part, but she was admittedly still a bit hesitant. \u201cI\u2019m very wary of stories that are centered around someone\u2019s gender identity because I don\u2019t want to make a parade of it,\u201d says Pascal.<\/p>\n

\"Lux
Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello dress, tights, ysl. com; Bvlgari High Jewelry earrings, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Stella McCartney dress, stellamccartney.com; Bvlgari High Jewelry earrings and bracelet, bulgari.com; Manolo Blahnik shoes, manoloblahnik.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Dior shirt, vest, cape, skirt, 800-929-DIOR; Bvlgari High Jewelry necklace, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lux
Dior shirt, vest, cape, skirt, 800-929-DIOR; Bvlgari High Jewelry necklace, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pascal herself transitioned in 2021. Pedro, ever the supportive brother, posted a picture on his Instagram after her announcement captioned: Mi hermana, mi coraz\u00f3n, nuestra Lux<\/em>, which translates to \u201cmy sister, my heart, our Lux.\u201d \u201cHe always drives me to be authentic and to trust myself,\u201d she says, adding that her relationship with all three of her siblings is extremely tight. \u201cAt the end of the day I know who I am and what I want.\u201d Since uprooting her career to America, her instincts thus far have proved to be right. She had a small, but pivotal, role in Ryan Murphy\u2019s much-discussed The Beauty <\/em>\u2014 \u201cMaybe it\u2019s not the smartest thing to say, but I will do anything Ryan asks me to,\u201d she claims, laughing. And this fall she will star in Cry to Heaven<\/em>, an oft-overlooked Anne Rice book that is a masterful study of art and identity through the lens of a historical epic about Italian castrati; it\u2019s being adapted for the screen by designer and director Tom Ford. Ford\u2019s films A Single Man <\/em>and Nocturnal Animals<\/em>, not to mention his \u201990s Gucci heyday, were formative for Pascal. Ford offered her the part without an audition. \u201cMy team called me and said they\u2019re going to send you the script, which they weren\u2019t even allowed to read, and you have to give us an answer as soon as you can,\u201d she recounts. \u201cI told them, \u2018I\u2019ll read it, but it doesn\u2019t matter, because the answer is yes.\u2019 He\u2019s remarkable!\u201d Though Pascal, sworn to secrecy, can\u2019t share many details about Cry to Heaven <\/em>yet, she says it\u2019s exquisitely written and that she understood immediately why Ford had tapped her. \u201cI knew exactly who this person was,\u201d says Pascal. \u201cIn the dialogue there isn\u2019t much revealed, but everything is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, to be an artist, you kind of have to live multiple lives.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She sees Ford, much like Carla, as someone who has led multiple lives. Someone who, in our modern vernacular, contains multitudes. It\u2019s a quality Pascal believes is required of her as an actress. \u201cTo me, to be an artist, you kind of have to live multiple lives,\u201d says Pascal. A few days after our chat, Harrison Ford would say something similar in his lifetime achievement speech at the SAG-AFTRA awards. Ford said: \u201cAs actors, we get to live many lives. We get to explore ideas that affirm and elevate our shared experience. The stories we tell have a unique capacity to create moments of emotional connection; they bring us together. … We share the privilege of working in the world of ideas, of empathy, of imagination.\u201d For Pascal, her artistic path is a profession and a passion, and, often, its own form of advocacy. As for how she\u2019s choosing the parts she takes, the stories she wants to be a part of telling, Pascal is resisting the urge to get too analytical about the process and be more instinctual instead. To do that she goes back to the discipline she learned as a dancer in Chile: Do, then think. Spoken like a true vanguard.<\/p>\n

\"Lux
Carolina Herrera dress, carolinaherrera.com; Bvlgari Allegra earrings, Bvlgari Tubogas bracelets, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lux
Brunello Cucinelli jacket, pants, shop. brunellocucinelli.com; Bvlgari Allegra necklace, Vimini bracelet, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lux
Brunello Cucinelli jacket, pants, shop. brunellocucinelli.com; Bvlgari Allegra necklace, Vimini bracelet, bulgari.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Words by Fiorella Valdesolo, <\/strong><\/em>Photography by Xavi Gordo, <\/strong><\/em>Styling by J. Errico<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Hair by Peter Gray at Home Agency using @owayusaofficial, Hair Assistance by Chiaki Morimoto\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Makeup by Kabuki using Dior Forever Skin Perfect, Manicure by Miss Pop using Chanel Le Vernis assisted by Sanzou<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

On Set Production b<\/i><\/b>y Jean Jarvis for Area1202<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Read\u00a0GRAZIA USA<\/em>\u2019s Spring\/Summer Issue<\/a> featuring cover star Lux Pascal<\/a>:<\/strong><\/h4>\n