Ant-Man’s David Dastmalchian has spoken about his character from The Suicide Squad, suggesting that the obscure DC villain has a tragic story hiding behind his perceived absurdity. No stranger to working in comic book films, not only has Dastmalchian appeared in both of the MCU’s Ant-Man outings, but he also starred as one of the Joker’s henchmen in 2008’s The Dark Knight and provided the voice of Calendar Man in the latest animated Batman: The Long Halloween. An actor with a long resume and busy schedule, Dastmalchian is also set to play Piter de Vries in the Dune reboot due for release in October.
When director James Gunn was originally let go from working on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2018, Warner Bros. were quick to swoop in and sign him on for his choice of DCEU projects. Settling on a sequel/soft reboot to David Ayer’s 2016 Suicide Squad, Gunn quickly took to combing the strangest and most obscure depths of DC comic lore to fill his version of Task Force X with some truly bizarre villains. None are probably stranger than that of Dastmalchian’s Polka-Dot Man, a B-grade Batman villain who wears a polka-dotted suit lined with deadly gadgets and first made his appearance 1962’s Detective Comics #300.
When the cast of recently spoke with Total Film during a set visit, Dastmalchian suggested that there’s much more to his character than fans may expect. While Gunn himself admitted that he included Polka-Dot Man as he intentionally went looking for “the dumbest DC character of all time,” he then went and added more to the character as it “is a fun thing for me to do.” Read what Dastmalchian said about his character's backstory below:
I can tell you that my character Abner is someone who has lived a lifetime with a lot of pain, a lot of shame, a lot of solitude because of a condition that he has. That condition was something that he decided at a certain point in time would be best suited to hurt other people or at least perform acts of crime, so that he could get some vengeance against a cruel and unfair world. Things haven’t gone great in Abner’s life basically since day one, so as we find him entering this story, he’s somebody that has never been a part of anything, so even in a bunch of really broken misfits and criminals, he’s maybe found one of the first moments in his life where he’s a part of something.
Ever since word of Gunn’s involvement in The Suicide Squad broke, DC fans had been wondering how his unique filmmaking style would translate to the property. Where David Ayer’s original plan for 2016’s Suicide Squad is reported as being far more serious in tone than the film’s final theatrical release, Gunn appears to be moving toward his signature blend of humor and unexpected heart. By all accounts, his handling of Polka-Dot Man sounds no less bizarre than Gunn's hugely successful attempts to turn a talking raccoon and a walking tree into some of the most beloved characters in the MCU.
With its August release date just around the corner, DC fans are eager to see what Gunn has cooked up with Dastmalchian and his fellow co-stars. Indeed, one of Dastmalchian's colleagues, actor Joel Kinnaman, has heaped the director’s work with praise, claiming that The Suicide Squad is “by far James Gunn's best movie” to date. And while Gunn is now planning to return to the MCU to finish off the third Guardians of the Galaxy, fans are hoping his current work on the Peacemaker spin-off series may signal the start of a much longer relationship with the DCEU.
Source: Total Film
