Warning: SPOILERS for Boston Strangler.Matt Ruskin's Boston Strangler approaches the brutal murder case of several Boston women from a different perspective than Richard Fleischer's 1968 biopic. Ruskin makes it his mission to share the untold story of Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole, two female reporters who worked for the Record-American newspaper. Although their research led to a breakthrough in the Boston Strangler investigation, the women were never properly recognized for their achievements.
However, now that the true crime thriller has landed on Hulu, McLaughlin and Cole's work is finally being acknowledged in Boston Strangler. David Dastmalchian plays the notorious serial killer himself, Albert DeSalvo. Dastmalchian has been featured in several films such as Ant-Man, Dune, and Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. His upcoming projects include The Boogeyman, Oppenheimer, and Last Voyage of the Demeter. Boston Strangler also stars Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean), Carrie Coon, Alessandro Nivola, Chris Cooper, and Robert John Burke.
David Dastmalchian chats exclusively with Screen Rant about his initial reluctance to play the real-life serial killer and the difficulties of diving into DeSalvo's headspace.
David Dastmalchian Talks Boston Strangler
Screen Rant: Well, hello! How are you?
David Dastmalchian: I'm great. I'm doing great. I'm so grateful that Boston Strangler is out now, and Matt's really beautiful film is getting a chance to connect with audiences. I've been getting a lot of really intense responses from both fans and friends and family who've seen the film. It was a really crazy couple of weeks for me, because we were at Austin for South by Southwest, launching Late Night with the Devil, which is one very specific kind of fun genre film, and then went right into the release of Boston Strangler, which is this powerful, true crime, compelling story that is so haunting and so intense. It's been quite a ride, but I've been really grateful to be a part of it.
How did you end up getting involved with Boston Strangler? What drew you to the role?
David Dastmalchian: That's a really good question. I think that they had reached out to see if I was interested. And I think at first, I was a little reticent, because the idea of bringing to life a character who was a real individual, who harmed so many people and destroyed so many lives, felt like such an intense responsibility. And then I took a look at Matt Ruskin's work and I felt like what I saw in Crown Heights, to me, showed a filmmaker with a vision and who took the work very seriously.
And then to know that so many people who I admire and respect in the industry, like the folks at Scott Free, Michael Pruss, and then to know that LuckyChap was producing, Tom Ackerley, Josey McNamara—these are friends of mine. Once I realized who all was involved in helping bring this story to life, I knew we were going to be in incredible hands. It was such a thrill to get to go do it. It was terrifying every day having to go get the courage to go to set. I will say that. It was really hard. Sometimes I wanted to hide or call in sick because it was that scary for me. But I'm grateful that I did it. I learned a lot about myself as an actor.
I was going to ask you about what it was like to dive into that headspace. Like you said, this isn't just a character. This is based on a real serial killer.
David Dastmalchian: He was born into a horrible living condition and suffered intense abuse from a very young age. [He] had severe mental issues that were possibly just genetic as well as wrought on by his upbringing, and his fixations and obsession with the pain that he felt so compelled to inflict upon women is so horrifying. It's so sad. It makes your stomach hurt when you actually really sit down and think about it. Like I said, this wasn't a genre horror picture. This is a real story with real stakes, real lives affected by this man, which is why it was so important for me to do my best as an actor because the story in the film is not about Albert DeSalvo.
This film is not about these brutal murders and this intense, complicated mystery, although you see all of these things unfold during the course of the film. What this movie is about is women fighting to tell a story. That's why this movie needed to be made. Because some people could say, "Why do you need to retell the story? The film has been made before. The story has been told." This story has never been told before.
People don't want to acknowledge how hard it was then [and] how hard it still is today for women in journalism, in our society, to be able to make their voices known without having to go through so many added layers of gate keeping, of proving themselves, of overcoming bullsh*t, pardon my French. That, to me, was why, on top of this beautiful script and powerful film, I needed to make sure that I brought Albert to life as authentically as possible, because I needed to help propel the power of the story of what Loretta was trying to achieve.
I was curious what your thoughts were on the director's decision to approach Boston Strangler from a reporter's point of view, rather than Albert DeSalvo's. How did this creative decision affect your role?
David Dastmalchian: We're living in a time where true crime is an international obsession. We are all so fascinated, especially because of the benefit of the internet, where we can do our own sleuthing, we can do our own investigations, and we can learn so much about these cases of the past. So there is a real power in this film that comes from the fact that this story was happening at a time when you couldn't hop on your phone and Google information. You couldn't get 24-hour news coverage on any of the cable cycles.
You basically had half an hour in the morning, half an hour in the evening for your local news, maybe half an hour once a week for national news that you might get some coverage on the Boston Strangler, but really, your source of information and data was those printed papers that showed up on your porch every morning. And here are these women, trying to get the ink on those pages to get the information out to people to help. Knowledge is power. We create safety, and we create safe spaces by educating and providing people with the knowledge and information that they need.
In light of where we live at the moment, with the privilege of access to so much data and information where we can all start to really go, "Holy crap, these stories are incredible," and "Wow, law enforcement needs to continue to improve and grow and strengthen and we as a society need to come together to really empower everybody who's trying to help, especially those who've been marginalized by the system." It just made for a really opportune time for Matt to make this film.
As the film reveals, there's so much that we still don't know about Albert DeSalvo. Did the lack of information create an added challenge? Did you make any definitive decisions about him to confidently portray the character?
David Dastmalchian: There is enough resource, I felt, to shape the character that I needed to create for the performance. There is audio that exists of interviews that he was giving during the investigation—I was able to listen to some of that. There were letters that he had written, which I had found, that had been transcribed into a book. There were a lot of different accounts and interviews with people from his own family to people who knew him.
So that's the work, when you're playing a real person, as an actor, that, to me, is invaluable. I couldn't imagine taking this role on and not having spent all that time absorbing all of that material. Unfortunately, it was also hard for me because it's dark stuff. I would often ask myself, "What the hell am I doing? Why did I agree to this?" And then when I got to see what Matt made, I was grateful. When I was shooting, even, I was grateful, because I knew that this was an important challenge for me to face as an actor and as a person.
About Boston Strangler
After the bodies of three elderly women are discovered, Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley), a reporter for the Record-American newspaper, is the first journalist to publish a story connecting the crimes. As the mysterious killer claims more and more victims, Loretta attempts to continue her investigation alongside colleague and confidant Jean Cole (Carrie Coon), yet the duo finds themselves stymied by the rampant sexism of the era. Nevertheless, McLaughlin and Cole bravely pursue the story at great personal risk, putting their own lives on the line in their quest to uncover the truth.
Check out our other interview with Boston Strangler director Matt Ruskin as well.
Boston Strangler is currently available to stream on Hulu.