Pascal enjoyed letting women do all the action in Wonder Woman 1984
From gaining fame as hot-headed sexy beast Oberyn Martell in the HBO series Game Of Thrones to portraying the titular bounty hunter in the Star Wars Disney+ series The Mandalorian, Pedro Pascal is usually in his comfort zone as the suave anti-hero with dangerous combat skills.
But fans will see a very different side of the 45-year-old Chilean-American actor in Wonder Woman 1984, which opens here on Dec 17.
His Maxwell Lord, another adversary for Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), is a desperate, cheesy and uncool snake oil salesman in expensive sheep's clothing who goes a step too far in trying to prove his worth to himself, the world and his son.
Pascal said the role was "delicious" for him and he enjoyed that this particular bad guy does not need to look ripped in a costume, or fight anyone.
He told The New Paper in a Zoom interview: "I got to lay around and the women had to do all the action - it's just better that way.
"It was pretty great to eat what I wanted and know that our brilliant costume designer Lindy Hemming would take care of it with a three-piece suit, and Jan Sewell with the hair and make-up.
"I was in the best hands possible, therefore I can take very little credit for what is ultimately achieved - and I can blame them if it doesn't work!"
LAYERS
Pascal also relished the challenge of digging through the many layers of Lord.
He said: "I understood once I saw the character on the page that we had to make a big swing. The only real way to tell the story honestly was to make him as human as possible."
Even though Lord is reminiscent of US President Donald Trump and refers to himself at one point as a "TV personality and successful businessman", Pascal insists the character was not inspired by the controversial US president.
"No, oddly it didn't (come up) when we were creating the character," he said. "There were so many different kinds of images of this kind of man from that era that it wasn't focused on any one of them.
"It was more along the lines of the Gordon Gekko character from (the 1987 film) Wall Street, or even models from clothing ads from the 80s that showed what the perfect man looked like, and of course, the Max Lord from the earlier versions in the comics.
"And then the rest of it was something surprisingly unique and independently original to this story."
Pascal juxtaposed his over-the-top, raw and vulnerable performance in Wonder Woman 1984 with his role in The Mandalorian, where his face and body are concealed the entire time by helmet and armour.
He said: "I loved the experience of being on two ends of the spectrum. Creatively, it was incredible to go from something very broad and exposed to the opposite thing, and yet very similarly on a grand scale and under the vision of very talented people." - JEANMARIE TAN
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