LOS ANGELES

When Pedro Pascal started to think about his “Wonder Woman 1984” villain Max Lord, one name came to mind: Gordon Gekko. Who better to model his power suit-wearing striver on than the embodiment of 1980s greed and callousness?

But director Patty Jenkins had something different in mind than the Michael Douglas character. (Both say it wasn’t Donald Trump, either.)

“She pulled me away from that,” Pascal said. “She was like, ‘that’s not the polish that we’re after.’”

It was a nerve-wracking realization for Pascal, who thought he’d be able to hide behind the slickness of a cold and calculating finance guy. But it was a call that he ended up loving in the end.

“What we went after was so much more unpredictable and exposed,” he said. “The thing that would ultimately anchor me to him was far more vulnerable than what a Gordon Gekko-type would be.”

In the film, which debuts in theaters and on HBO Max in the U.S. on Christmas Day, Max Lord is a divorced dad, minor television personality and wannabe oil tycoon whose wealth is mostly smoke and mirrors until he gets hold of a powerful, wish-granting stone.

“He’s an immigrant who is trying to live up to appearing to be his idea of the American dream,” Jenkins said.

It was producer Charles Roven, who he’d worked with on “Triple Frontier,” who initially called Pascal saying that Jenkins wanted to meet.

“I just adored him. I thought he was such a great guy and such an interesting person and an excellent actor,” Jenkins said. “But when I was sitting and thinking about who could pull this off, I just knew that he could do it. There was something about Pedro that I knew he could hit every different mark and also reveal a side of himself I wasn’t sure that even he had gotten to use yet.”