When Pedro Pascal started thinking about his villain Max Lord, “Wonder Woman 1984”, a name came to mind: Gordon Gekko. Who better to model their effort to wear the power suit than to embody the greed and insensitivity of the 1980s?
But director Patty Jenkins had something different in mind than the character Michael Douglas. (They both say Donald Trump wasn’t either.)
“It took me away from that,” Pascal said. “He said, ‘He’s not the Pole we’re after.’
For Pascal, who thought he would be able to hide behind a cold, computer-type finance, it was an annoying achievement. But it was a calling he came to love in the end.
“What I was looking for was much more unpredictable and more exposed,” he said. “The thing that will finally anchor me was much more vulnerable than what a Gordon Gekko guy 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 an oily wannabe tycoon, whose wealth is mostly smoke and mirrors, until he becomes a strong desire, the bestowal of the stone.
“He’s an immigrant who tries to live to the end to seem like his idea of the American dream,” Jenkins said.
Producer Charles Roven, with whom he worked on “Triple Frontier”, initially called Pascal saying that Jenkins wants to meet.
“I adored him. I thought he was such a great guy, such an interesting person and an excellent actor, “said Jenkins. “But when I sat down and thought about who could solve this, I only knew that he could do it. There was something about Pedro that I knew could touch any different sign, and it could also reveal a side of him, I wasn’t sure even he had managed to use it yet. “
Pascal had long been a fan of Jenkins’ opera: he remembers seeing “The Monster” in a Manhattan theater and had to wait until the credits were played to leave because he was crying so hard and being especially moved by the sequence No Man’s Land “Wonder Woman.”
The two films also intersected when Jenkins directed him in a pilot that was never taken. So when the chance arose to work with her again, he knew what her answer would be.
“I didn’t care what it was,” Pascal said. “I still have trouble wrapping my head around the opportunity.”
He admitted that he was a little nervous about the costumes.
“In my opinion, I’m not a person to take a look from the ’80s,” Pascal laughed. “I felt like I looked bad in big things.”
In the 1980s Netflix series, “Narcos” Pascal even lobbied for his DEA agent character to wear more 1970s styles. But, he said, Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming was a “magician. ”In“ Wonder Woman 1984 ”.
With incredible attention to detail, she created costumes for Max Lord that Pascal said were “generous and sophisticated”, “colorful and elegant” and “just about to be ugly.”
“It was a fascinating thing,” he said.
Since being cast in “Wonder Woman 1984”, Pascal’s star has grown immeasurably due to the spinoff “The Mandalorian”, which ended its second season on Disney +. He remembers that he was in initial discussions for the role with Jon Favreau just before flying to London to film “Wonder Woman”.
And, although Max Lord and the mysterious bounty hunter could not be more different, there is a rather pronounced resemblance that is not lost on Pascal.
“Max Lord has such outer armor with hair products and power suits … which is a mask with so many things going on right under it that it contradicts so much what kind of physical message he presents with his personality.” , said Pascal. “(He looks a lot like the Mandalorian.”
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Watch AP Film writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr