Pedro Pascal’s Wonder Woman 1984 Character Is Exactly Who You Thought He Was

Pedro Pascal’s Wonder Woman 1984 Character Is Exactly Who You Thought He Was

It feels like eons ago we learned Game of Thrones star Pedro Pascal would be joining the highly-anticipated Wonder Woman sequel in an undisclosed role, what with him picking up another juicy role in the meantime you can’t really blame us for getting distracted. So it was a bit of surprise to see director Patty Jenkins just… tweeted out his “secret” role today.

Think waaaay back to July 2018. That’s when Pascal was officially announced as joining the cast of Wonder Woman 1984. At the time, Jenkins teased the news with a simple: “Can’t…Stop…Watching…” We didn’t even know for sure if he was playing a villain, though most of us assumed that was the case.

Even though his famous, um… entanglements with Diana are more modern, my first instinct was that Pascal was going to play DC Comics’ Maxwell Lord. Many of you in the comments had the same thought but there were some other good guesses thrown out, like G. Gordon Godfrey (aka Glorious Godfrey), who’s currently appearing in DC Universe’s excellent Young Justice series.

But no, as it turns out, the obvious was true. Over a year after Pascal was announced — and the release date frustratingly pushed back — Jenkins dropped a photo of sleezy Max on her account. And in case there was still any confusion over the vague tweet, Jenkins also tagged Pascal’s twitter account on the image.

And if there was still any doubt after that, a press release from three days ago promoting the movie’s upcoming trailer drop at Comic Con Experience in São Paulo gave this info about the film: “Fast forward to the 1980s as Wonder Woman’s next big screen adventure finds her facing all-new foes. Director Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984 stars Gal Gadot in the title role, alongside Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, Kristen Wiig as The Cheetah, Pedro Pascal as Max Lord, Robin Wright as Antiope and Connie Nielsen as Hippolyta. Jenkins directs from a screenplay she wrote with Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham, story by Jenkins and Johns.”

So there you have it. As you can see from the image Jenkins posted, Maxwell Lord isn’t a new character by any means. He was first introduced in 1987 — created by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire — and did not have any super abilities.

But, as comics tend to do, Max did acquire probably the worst kind you can imagine for a bad guy — telepathic powers that allowed him to make others do whatever he wished. Considering the hints Jenkins has given us so far, it would seem Max is definitely going to have a big influence on the media landscape in 1984.

We’re still a ways out from Wonder Woman 1984 and other details are still few and far between, but at least now we know what kind of jerk Diana will take down this time around — though time will tell if she deals with him the same way she did in the comics.

Wonder Woman 1984 film is currently set for a June 5, 2020 release and you’ll see Pascal (though maybe not his face) in The Mandalorian when Disney+ launches next month.