When Pedro Pascal started thinking about his “Wonder Woman 1984” villain Max Lord, a name came to mind: Gordon Gekko. Who better to model his power suit-wearing striver than the epitome of the greed and insensitivity of the 1980s?
But director Patty Jenkins had something different in mind than Michael Douglas’ character. (Both say it wasn’t Donald Trump either.)
“She pulled me away from it,” said Pascal. “She was like, ‘That’s not the nail polish we’re looking for.”
It was a nerve-racking realization for Pascal, who thought he could hide behind the smoothness of a cold and calculating financial man. But it was a call that he eventually loved.
“What we were looking for was so much more unpredictable and visible,” he said. “The thing that would eventually anchor me to him was a lot more fragile than what a Gordon Gekko type would be.”
In the film, which debuts in theaters and on HBO Max in the US on Christmas Day, Max Lord is a divorced father, a minor television personality and a wannabe oil tycoon whose wealth is mostly smoke and mirrors until he gets his hands on a mighty wish. . grant stone.
“He’s an immigrant trying to live as if it were his idea of the American dream,” said Jenkins.
It was producer Charles Roven, with whom he had worked on “Triple Frontier”, who initially called Pascal and said that Jenkins wanted to meet him.
‘I just loved him. I thought he was such a great guy and such an interesting person and an excellent actor, ”said Jenkins. ‘But when I was thinking about who could do this, I just knew he could. There was something about Pedro that I knew he could hit any other mark and also reveal a side of himself that I wasn’t sure he could ever have used. “
Pascal has long been a fan of Jenkins’s work: he remembers seeing ‘Monster’ in a theater in Manhattan and had to wait for the credits to end because he cried so hard, and was especially moved by No Man’s sequence. Land in “Wonder Woman.”
In between the two films, they had also bumped into each other when Jenkins directed him in a pilot that was never picked up. So when he got the chance to work with her again, he knew what his answer would be.
“I didn’t care what it was,” said Pascal. “I’m still struggling to wrap my head around the occasion.”
He was, he admitted, a little nervous about the costumes.
“In my opinion, I’m not one to do an 80s look very well,” laughed Pascal. “I felt like I (would) look stupid in baggy stuff.”
On the ’80s Netflix show’ Narcos ‘, Pascal even lobbied to have his DEA agent character wear more’ 70s styles. But, he said, Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming was a “magician” in “Wonder Woman 1984”.
With an incredible attention to detail, she created suits for Max Lord that Pascal said were at times ‘gaudy and sophisticated’, ‘colorful and stylish’ and ‘on the verge of unpleasant’.
“It was fascinating,” he said.
Since the cast in “Wonder Woman 1984”, Pascal’s star has risen immeasurably thanks to the wildly popular Star Wars spin-off “The Mandalorian,” which just concluded its second season on Disney +. He recalls having initial discussions about the role with Jon Favreau just before flying to London to film ‘Wonder Woman’.
And while Max Lord and the mysterious bounty hunter can’t be more different, there’s a pretty poignant resemblance that Pascal doesn’t lose.
“Max Lord has such an external armor with hair products and power suits … what such a mask is with so much going on just underneath that it contradicts so much what kind of physical message he conveys with his persona,” said Pascal. “(It) looks a lot like the Mandalorian.”
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Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr