WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Wonder Woman 1984, now in theaters and on HBO Max.
Wonder Woman 1984 features not just one, but two primary antagonists: Max Lord and Barbara Minerva, aka Cheetah. Although both characters face off against Diana on her mission to protect humanity, neither is defined by the sum of their goals. Instead, the film explores their motivations and personalities, even as they make poor and often selfish decisions. Now, in light of the sequel's release, writer-director Patty Jenkins has broken down her approach to adapting these villains with an emphasis on their humanity.
"First of all, I love some of the villains that I grew up with, even where you had a really interesting and funny and dynamic character," Jenkins shared. "In this one, not unlike my desire to make Monster and talk about why people do the things they do, I loved the challenge of saying, like, 'Okay, so how does this person become a superhero? What is the struggle of the journey, to begin there? How does this person become a villain? What is it?'"
"And particularly Max, I loved the fact that he's so preoccupied with trying to live up to this thing, probably, because of his own father or whatever, to tell his son, 'I'm going to be a winner' and the son never cared about that," she explained. "Like, nobody cared about it! It's in your own head that you have to become this person to be worthy of love, you know? So watching that storyline and how far he's willing to go and watching Cheetah's storyline and Barbara, how far she's willing to go just to feel adequate."
"Hopefully, the important subtext of the movie is that we are all these people," she added. "Like, we are all people. We all have our moments of knowing that we could choose to not do the heroic thing, because there's some hole we need to fill, and when we're facing what we're facing in the modern world, we're all going to have to start facing, sacrificing and thinking on a global scale about caring for each other. So that was something I really cared about bringing to all these people."
Wonder Woman 1984 finds Diana feeling adrift and alone -- until she makes a friend in Kristen Wiig's Cheetah, that is. When the two museum curators stumble across an ancient artifact that grants wishes with an insidious twist, both of their lives begin to change, sending them down opposing paths.
Directed and co-written by Patty Jenkins, Wonder Woman 1984 stars Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal and Natasha Rothwell. The film is now available in theaters and on HBO Max.