I started learning Russian (along with Brazilian Portuguese) about 2 months ago. One resource I have been using is Russian movies. I have noticed a verb use that has me a little confused:

When a (male) person seems to be saying what in English would mean "I am going now", that person says "я пошёл"

When a person says to a group what in English would mean "Let's go!", the person says "пошли!"

I assume that the verb I am hearing is the past tense of the perfective verb "пойти"

Are the above examples cases of using past tense of a perfective verb to describe present tense action or is this possibly "mistaken identity" and actually some other verb?

спасибо!