{"id":534197,"date":"2026-04-16T14:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T14:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/534197\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T14:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T14:04:08","slug":"pedro-pascal-v-pedro-piscal-actor-in-legal-battle-with-chilean-spirit-brand-chile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/534197\/","title":{"rendered":"Pedro Pascal v Pedro Piscal: actor in legal battle with Chilean spirit brand | Chile"},"content":{"rendered":"

The actor Pedro Pascal<\/a> is waging a legal battle against a Chilean pisco merchant who has chosen a cheeky name for his brand of the country\u2019s national spirit: Pedro Piscal.<\/p>\n

David Herrera registered the brand name with a Chilean commercial regulator in 2023 and began selling his pisco in off-licences and restaurants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried a few names and Pedro Piscal stuck,\u201d Herrera, 41, said. \u201cThen we were planning a trip up to the Pisco region when suddenly we were getting strongly worded emails from lawyers. Me, a mere mortal, getting emails from a superstar actor? It scared me a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pedro Piscal brand name was registered with a Chilean commercial regulator in 2023. Photograph: Pedro Piscal<\/p>\n

Pascal, who was born in Chile and is a popular figure in his home country, did not attend a court hearing but filed to take control of the brand name on account of its similarity with his own name and brand.<\/p>\n

Herrera is not the first Chilean entrepreneur to have found themselves facing down a Hollywood A-lister in court over a cheeky pun. A honey business calling itself Miel Gibson \u2013 using a still from Braveheart on the label \u2013 won the right to keep using the name after the actor sued.<\/p>\n

Miel Gibson fought off a legal challenge from its Hollywood near namesake. Photograph: Martin Bernetti\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

In 2020, DC Comics went after a bakery in Santiago that had called itself Superpan for three decades and used images of Clark Kent and his famous \u201cS\u201d symbol. The bakery emerged victorious.<\/p>\n

And across town, not far from a printing business named Harry Plotter, Mat\u00edas Jara runs Star Wash, a car wash service that borrows liberally from the Star Wars canon \u2013 and even uses its famous font.<\/p>\n

Mat\u00edas Jara of Star Wash in Santiago. Photograph: Mat\u00edas Jara\/Star Wash<\/p>\n

\u201cChileans are mischievous, that\u2019s the thing,\u201d Jara said. \u201cWe are always messing around and joking. We change the lyrics to songs in English to Chileanise them, and we like wordplay \u2013 I love Star Wars and just wanted to stand out with my brand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once a month, motorists can get their footwells vacuumed under the watchful gaze of Chewbacca or sit at the wheel while a gaggle of Stormtroopers supervise the polishing of their windshield, as the forecourt has become a popular meetup place for cosplayers.<\/p>\n

Star Wash won its initial legal battle with Lucasfilm, the rights holder to the Star Wars franchise, to keep using the name but is still waiting for a ruling in another case that could force Jara to change the company\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

As for Pedro Piscal, Herrera said: \u201cI don\u2019t regret it for a moment.\u201d He said he and his cousins were partial to a piscola \u2013 pisco and Coca-Cola poured over ice \u2013 and would call it a piscal. He said Pedro came from the pedro xim\u00e9nez grape variety, from which the spirit is distilled.<\/p>\n

But the actor\u2019s lawyers saw it differently. Juan Pablo Silva, the managing partner at the firm representing Pascal, said he was unable to comment on an ongoing case. However, he highlighted initial rulings that transferred ownership of two online domains from Herrera to Pascal, as well as the actor successfully trademarking his name, as reasons for the firm\u2019s optimism over a decision that could come before the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Herrera said: \u201cWe don\u2019t use [Pascal\u2019s] face or his likeness anywhere. We\u2019re just selling a good product.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The actor Pedro Pascal is waging a legal battle against a Chilean pisco merchant who has chosen a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-534197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}