What Pedro Pascal Really Felt About His Maxwell Lord Look In Wonder Woman 1984
In Patty Jenkins' 2020 superhero flick "Wonder Woman 1984," an evil business tycoon named Maxwell Lorenzano — better known to the world as Max Lord (Pedro Pascal) — has a very, very ambitious scheme. He has located a magical wishing crystal called the Dreamstone, and has carefully thought out what he wants to wish for. The Dreamstone, you see, can grant any one wish, but it asks for something abstract in exchange. Max Lord has figured a way to game the system in order to get as many wishes as he wants. If he wishes to become the Dreamstone, then he will be able to grant wishes to other people ... and ask whatever he wants in exchange. It's a win-win. Max Lord, naturally, aims to become more and more powerful, granting wishes to dictators and Presidents, asking for control of land, armies, and broadcasting networks in exchange.
This is a fitting ambition for a businessman in 1984, as it was the height of Ronald Reagan's pro-corporate horrors, creating a soulless, masculine yuppie class that cares only about money and power. Max Lord is one of Reagan's yuppies, who translated the laissez-faire capitalism of the era into literal magical power. It's telling that Reagan (Stuart Milligan) is a character in the film.
Max Lord also possessed a rather dubious fashion sense. He was a slick salesman who wore his hair in a combed-forward swoop, and a bow tie around his neck. Unusually for Pascal, he was clean-shaven, lacking his signature mustache. It was ... a choice. Max Lord was clearly trying to look like a dapper, old-money aristocrat, but ended up looking like a wimpy clown (which was, I suspect, Patty Jenkins' intention). Pedro Pascal recently appeared on the LADBible YouTube series "Agree to Disagree," and talked very briefly about his "Wonder Woman 1984" look. It seems the bowtie and hair weren't an issue, but he hated the fact that he wasn't allowed to keep his mustache.
Pedro Pascal hated that he had to shave his mustache for Wonder Woman 1984
The debate on the "Agree to Disagree" show was between Pascal and his "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" co-star Vanessa Kirby, and they were talking about the sexiness levels of bears and mustaches. Pascal argued that his mustache is not the least bit sexy, but that he feels it's preferable to his clean-shaven face, which is even less sexy. "I grow such s*** facial hair," hair said, "but if I were to shave it all off ... I really look very ... strongly disagree with a clean-shaven me." Kirby (correctly) points out that Pascal is a handsome man either way.
When was the last time he was clean-shaven in a movie? "Wonder Woman 1984," of course. About that film specifically, Pascal said:
"I was so appalled by the way I looked. [...] I loved the movie, but I was so appalled by the way that I looked that I never have gone back. Unless it were completely necessary. If they asked me to be clean-shaven for 'Fantastic Four,' and if they had insisted, I would've done it. But it was a very collaborative creation for all of our looks in the movie."
"Fantastic Four" is set in an alternate universe version of the early 1960s, so fashions are an amalgam of sci-fi and kitschy retro-futurism. In that milieu, Pascal was allowed to keep his mustache. For the year 1984, though, mustaches were out of fashion, at least for yuppies (Tom Selleck and Edward James Olmos were a proud exceptions), and it stands to reason that Max Lord would indeed be clean-shaven.
Know that if Pascal appears in any movies sans mustache, it was because he had to compromise on something.