There is no shortage of poetic justice on hand with James Gunn's version of The Suicide Squad, as the writer/director's jump from Marvel to DC (and back again) giving everyone involved that much more drive to deliver a winner. But for a character like Polka-Dot Man, the idea of having 'something to prove' reaches a whole new level... and it's one that Gunn and actor David Dastmalchian just might reach.
When Screen Rant got the chance to visit the set of The Suicide Squad back in November 2019, Dastmalchian's unlikeliest of heroes was a common talking point, embodying the franchise's idea of 'expendable people doing the impossible' perfectly. And you can't mention unlikely or overlooked heroes without heaping praise on Steve Agee, swapping his role as a Ravager in the MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy for the on-set performance of King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone in the final film). Both actors spoke of the surprising heart in the film, with particular attention paid to Polka-Dot Man, and his soon to be rewritten fame as one of DC's lamest villains. Readers can enjoy the entire interview below.
How did you become Polka-Dot Man?
David Dastmalchian: I was in Scotland. I was in Glasgow, Scotland. It was like 2:00 in the morning, and I was doing a screening of this film that I had had made, an indie called "All Creatures Here Below." And I get this text through WhatsApp from James Gunn. And the thing that having been friends with James for a while now, a lot of his friends ended up finding their way into his films, because he keeps his circle of friends and compatriots really close. So, to be honest, never talked about work before. We'd been friends for quite a while. We've never talked about work stuff. We talk about other stuff when we hang out. And the one thing I kind of wanted to be like, thanks for not throwing me into one of your things. So when he did, I was like, thanks for not doing it.
Steve Agee: The best way to get put into a movie: being passive aggressive.
David Dastmalchian: It's the best way. It's how I got my wife to marry me. When he said, "I want you to be a part of the Suicide Squad," I thought, "Oh my God, amazing." I didn't know to what extent or what degree or what I'd be doing, if I was just going to be elevator door guy that gets blown up in an explosion or maybe background or something. So, then I called him, and we started talking, he started telling me about this project. I'd been around him even recently, and he'd never told... Maybe he told you. He hadn't told me anything about this project.
So he started describing how it was going to work and all the crazy machinations he'd come up with for telling this story that he wanted to tell. Then I realized that I was going to get to play this Polka-Dot Man part of it, and I cried, man. I mean, I sat there. I was like, 'I'm going to get to be a part of the story that James is going to tell.' And that's something, I don't know. Ever since I first saw his work, I've always dreamed about getting a chance to work with him.
Can you talk about the character itself? Because it's a little bit more of a deeper cut for DC, and we saw a video of what it looks like when the colors and the lights come out everything.
David Dastmalchian: Oh, yeah?
Yeah, yeah. It looks pretty cool.
David Dastmalchian: You guys have seen so much. I've been so like, 'What can I say?' We're in Atlanta, they feed us. We can say that.
Steve Agee: I don't know what we're allowed to say.
David Dastmalchian: So... deep, deep, deep cut character. Literally voted like one of, I think, the least popular characters in all of the DC canon.
Steve Agee: I think the word is "Lamest."
David Dastmalchian: Lamest. Thanks Steve. I was trying to put a... they did a vote. They took a poll.
Steve Agee: Lame DC characters.
David Dastmalchian: And I was embarrassed, to be honest, because the name sparked a bit of a memory, but anyone who knows me knows that I've been collecting comics since I was a kid. And I'm pretty devoted to the rogues galleries of each different superhero's collection of villains, and thinking that I know ... I'd be like cool "Who?" But I was like, wait, who, what, what does he do?
So yeah, Abner is a really wonderful character, who it definitely is not... I feel like there's some thread between myself and this character in that he's never... Parts of my life, I think that I never appreciated or thought that anything about what I had to offer, maybe was either cool or powerful or interesting. And then certain circumstances arose in my life, and probably my wife and my friends who've made me feel like that. There's this kind of kindredness between me Abner in that sense. Is that good?
Steve Agee: After our first night of shooting, I went home thinking, "Oh my God, Dave's going to steal a lot of scenes in this movie."
Why? Can you elaborate?
Steve Agee: I don't think I'm allowed to. It's really good on the page, but Dave just brought it some more depth. We were shooting a scene with Cena, and Idris, and Daniela, and Dave and I, and you naturally would think that Cena is going to stand out. And he is very funny, but like Dave was really holding his own and it was just like, oh my God, he's, he's going to be hugely popular after this movie.
Steve, you're doing King Shark. How do you--
David Dastmalchian: Eats chum all day.
Steve Agee: I just come in, even on days I don't work. I come into eat free catering. No, it's weird, because I work more days than anybody on the movie, any of the rest of the cast, but I work less than anybody. I think my job is really easy. Like, I am doing motion capture.
You're not doing the voice, right?
Steve Agee: As of right now I don't think so. I don't think they've figured that part out yet. I'm doing what Sean Gunn did for a Rocket, as doing the motion capture. But it's really easy. I come in and we run the scene, with me and my weird suit and head piece. Then I get to go sit down and they keep redoing the same where they're going to digitally put me in.
David Dastmalchian: We always do it once with, once without, once with, once without. And if you guys have followed, and I'm sure all of you know, and are familiar with how much Sean has brought to the Rocket character, what's really fun is because Steve is a great actor all across the board, but he's also just a brilliant comedian and improviser. So what's fun is when we're shooting, I'll allow it. I put a pillow here. It's brilliant of James to think... It was one of the first, it was a very early casting decision, because he knew that--
Steve Agee: I was tall.
He needed someone tall.
David Dastmalchian: But to have somebody there, because that character is such an important part of things that are going to be happening with this plot. So, it's been really fun. And that's another thing for me personally, like the stakes involved in this are really high, because of the property, the comic book, et cetera. But I do feel every day, like I'm going to, to work like we're back at my house. Because Steve is part of our family. Like, it's just weird that we're now getting to be a part of a movie together. Because we hang out almost every day back in LA and in our real lives, and my kids he's like an uncle to them. So, that's really fun.
Steve Agee: I'd say older brother.
David Dastmalchian: Well... more like a grandfatherly figure, great-grandfather. That's really cool. Because it adds that, what do you call that? The shorthand, the fluidity of when there are scenes and we can play off each other. That's great.
Is it A big team up between your two characters?
David Dastmalchian: There's a good number of things that we get to do together. Yeah.
Steve Agee: I think Dave works almost as much I do.
David Dastmalchian: I feel like I remember when the AD's were--at the very beginning of a shoot, you look at the map of this immense schedule, and I know when I'm here and what I'm doing and stuff. And then I was like, who's that blue dot, that's just all the way across? And it's Steve Agee. So yeah, yes. In fact, just the other day we were doing something that was just really, it's really fun. I love the relationship that our characters get to have together.
Is the lack of restrictions in the sense of 'shared universe' somewhat freeing for you guys? That you really only have to worry about telling this one story. You don't have to worry about setting up additional things or 'how does this connect to that.' Especially coming over from the Marvel side too, where there's a lot of threads.
David Dastmalchian: So they're trying to play down in the whole Polka-Dot/King Shark universe that their building. I understand that. No, yeah, it's great. I've always felt free in the jobs that I have, because I always felt lucky to be there. And maybe who knows how many more I'll be a part of if there's a franchise or whatever. But it's spectacularly dangerous in a wonderful, fun way, because James is just committed to making the best movie right here, and now for this particular.
So yes, there are threads that connect in some way or which, I don't know how, to a bigger universe that is established with, or that's been built, that he understands that too, as a comic book collector himself, that even if you're reading a variant on something, that's totally a Squirrel Girl, that might be participating in the same universe as other characters, there is some fluidity somehow in the subtext. But he is making something that is this. And it's a grand epic piece of cinema, that's just this experience.
And I think that it's fun. It's fun for people. And as for me as a fan and an audience member to get attached, to and excited to going to watch or experience things, knowing that they're part of something, just like the comic books I collect, that I know I'm going to be getting them every month. Then it's fun sometimes to go to something and go, "Golly, they could all just blow up at the end of this." The stakes are very high in this film in particular. And when I read it, that was something that... Many things about this script caught me emotionally unexpectedly. Yeah. That's certainly one.
Speaking of heads blowing up and stuff. What kind of stuff have you seen on set that has lent itself to an R rating?
David Dastmalchian: Heads blowing up.
Steve Agee: Our second unit director, as well as the stunt supervisor is a Guy Norris who was the stunt supervisor for the Road Warrior and Mad Max Fury Road. And there were few days where I didn't get to finish some shoots, some scenes. So, I got to go and work with second unit outdoors while they were filming stunts. And while I waited to shoot my weird little stuff, I got to sit and watch Guy map out these huge explosions. And like people die, just like Fury Road. I was like, "Oh my god. This s*** has been going on the whole time. We're indoor shooting, our weird little conversations. Guy Norris is out there on the back lot blowing s*** up." And it's like, mind-blowing. I'm like, oh my God, this is really action packed.
David Dastmalchian: And it's visceral. And it's James unbound, I think, with the freedom. It's not like he's making an R rated movie. I think he's making just the movie that's in his mind. And then they've taken the cuffs off in the sense that it can be whatever it's going to be. So I don't think he like sat down and was like, "I'm going to make the first R rated big franchise." Well, Deadpool, I guess, was R rated. But language wise, I don't know if there's anything crazy or rough in it, but it's definitely, there's violence.
Steve Agee: I think the F-word happens.
David Dastmalchian: The F-word has happened. I don't say it... I mean, the stakes are life and death in this. And which is fun for me as a grown up now fan of comic books. Sometimes I love things that are family-friendly where I could take my five and a half year old, and we can enjoy, because that is a reality. And I don't think that's dumbed down in any way. I think that's just another element to comic book storytelling.
This though is a very real part of comic book storytelling where lives are actually on the line, and the stakes really are like life or death. And there's like in [The Belko Experiment] some moments that are kind of hilariously like, holy s***, a head just blew up. Yeah. Some heads will absolutely blow up. There will be brains on this camera, but there are some too that you're just like, Hmm. It adds a weight of dramatic intensity to me as a viewer and now player in it.
We've heard about the kind of comedic energy that King Shark brings to the team. Can you tell us a little bit about what your King Shark is like?
Steve Agee: I mean, you can see him right there. Visually, he's funny. And he's just, he doesn't really think things out. He's kind of just acts on his animalistic, basic needs and wants and impulses.
David Dastmalchian: It's a juxtaposition too, because funny, yes. But also horrifying. Like he's so dangerous. And like, you would want him on your team if you were going into a battle. So for my character, I actually don't experience much of the... I mean, there are funny things that we've shot. There's some great writing in here, that's really funny. And then Steve, will--
Steve Agee: He looks really funny. But also if you really walked into a room at night, you would fully get diarrhea, if you saw that thing.
David Dastmalchian: Yeah. You would. You'd throw up. And yeah, I'm never comfortable or at ease around the fact that those jaws will indeterminately start feeding frenzying.
Steve Agee: He's a shark.
Yet, he's intimidated by Amanda Waller, I would assume?
Steve Agee: I would say, I mean, as much as, I guess all the other characters--
David Dastmalchian: Have you met Viola Davis?
Steve Agee: I was scared of Viola Davis.
David Dastmalchian: I was like, "Oh man, I hope she remembers me, because I had worked with her on Prisoners. And Steve was with me. We walked into where our chairs were lined up the first day we worked with her, and wasn't she so cool?
Steve Agee: I had rehearsed with her a couple of times prior. And I oddly, I follow her on Instagram. And I was like, I think we're going to be best friends. I am going to win Viola Davis over. And the first day I met her, she was so like focused on rehearsal. And I was terrified of her. I was like, 'Oh my God, she's all business. She hates me.'
David Dastmalchian: That day in those chairs was really fun. Because we got a chance to just... They were really taking a minute to set some technical issues up with the shot that day. So it meant that Steve and I and Viola and a couple of the other actors were just kind of left to hang out for a bit. And we were out in a remote location where it wasn't like, "Oh, we're going to walk you back to whatever." Because they're always roving people out. So we try and keep us in places. So we got to hang on and she did a personality test on Steve--
Steve Agee: The Myers Briggs personality test. It was like one of the first things she said to me. She's just like, 'Have you ever taken the Myers Briggs personality test?' I was like, "No." She was like, "I'm going to give it to you. Because I think you're a lot like me. I was like, "Oh. We might just be best friends."
What's the role both of your characters play on the team? Like what role does Polka-Dot Man and King Shark play on a team? How does the rest of the team react to someone like Polka-Dot Man?
David Dastmalchian: I mean, I'll say, I don't think that inherently just say his name out loud. He doesn't command a ton of respect out the gate. I think that, he's somebody that hasn't ever found much connectivity with people, because of certain things that I can't discuss today, but also just because he's Polka-Dot Man. I mean, that was the thing that worked for him, or he thought would work.
So, it's interesting. You have a group of exceptionally gifted or talented people at different varying degrees of strength or whatever their particular specialty might be, which might be useful, but they're also people that are disposable in a sense to the bigger scheme of operations. And I think he's always felt that way. So even if it's this big fish starting to feel like maybe there's an alliance with some people, it's a new feeling for Abner.
Steve Agee: These are all characters that for the most part, probably don't even know the existence of the other ones. Some of them do, and it's the story of the suicide squad. They are forced to be together, and do this task, this mission. So, part of the story is just watching these people adapt to being around each other.
David Dastmalchian: Sure. Absolutely. There's people in this story that really want friendships, and people that don't want anybody near them, and people that want ... Like just all of us, you know? And I think all of us have felt at times, like we are totally disposable to either our employers or society or you name it, you know?
So that's been interesting, in the relationship with the dynamic that starts to build or break down it. Like I say, it's very fun, funny. It's going to be insanely entertaining, and amazingly mind-blowing, and all the visuals and all that stuff to me is everything. But it's nothing without the soul underneath that. And that's why it was such a brilliant choice. I think, to ask James, come aboard something like this, because he's the man that knows exactly how to inject that into it.
Can you each of you talk about just the physicality of creating these characters? Because I see you've got some velcro on your flippers there.
Steve Agee: Oh god dude, so much. It is so much.
David Dastmalchian: I thought you had wrist guards. I was like, is Steve bowling again?
Steve Agee: I don't even know why I have to have this.
David Dastmalchian: Carpal tunnel things.
So that's not like a flipper extension?
Steve Agee: No, I think this is to keep it on, and from sliding up. But it's horrible. Like everything on this is velcro. I go to the bathroom and I'm trying hurry up. And then this will stick to the shirt as I'm trying to get it off. And like everything. And the overcoats they make us wear, so that when we walk the set, no one takes photos of us.
The overcoats have like velcro latches on them. So, I'm literally trying to put it on, and it's like sticking to my back. And just a big tarp.
David Dastmalchian: We look like walking tents going anywhere.
Steve Agee: But yeah, as far as physicality, I just like, look at this guy. I'm like, all right, he leads with his head obviously, because it just ... And then I have to wear a helmet with kind of guidelines for where his eyes and his mouth are. So I know to just kind of lean forward and walk around. And I've also got some giant, like hulk hands, but shark hands that are about two feet longer than... So it really kind of just happens. Like you wear this stuff and it's just like, it's more comfortable to kind of slouch. And I mean, it really just happens.
Did you do a lot of shark research?
Steve Agee: Well, I'm a huge shark week fan. And Jaws is one of my favorite movies.
David, you've been in Dark Knight, and a sort of obscure villain in The Flash, and now also The Suicide Squad. I hope I got that right with IMDB stalking. Can you speak a little bit to what it's like to be in different DC movies?
David Dastmalchian: It's weird. It's so surreal you guys. Like you can imagine somebody who's been collecting comic books, and obsessed with, or fascinated, I shouldn't say obsessed with. That's a weird word. But fascinated by all of this, and really love it so much.
Each time one of these big moments, or opportunities has happened in my life, I feel, you just want to savor every moment, and you want be as grateful as you possibly can, because every time something like this has happened, I've said "You can't do more. Like it's not going to, you can't go any further in this world of things. So just enjoy it. Because this has been so incredible." And now here we are. I'm back at Warner Brothers, back with DC. And I don't know, it's hard to put it ... It's just at the beginning of this journey. So it's hard to even put into words how elated I feel when I walk onto set. When I get a text from James about something that we shot that day or when I sit down and I look at the script and I think about what I'm doing.
It doesn't matter what it is, every single role to me is a totally fresh new and beginning. So tone, tonality, the world in which things exist, and how things move and operate, the way that the source material is being brought to life, and the way in which the source material is being brought to life. All of that absolutely plays into my approach to creating character. And none of these journeys have been the same, and yet it's amazing to me that like the Dark Knight so epically, cinematically, revolutionarily lifted the spirit of like the Miller-Loeb kind of world into cinema, whereas what I think that the guys have done with CW and with The Flash, that was so fun. And that totally felt to me like that 83, 85 run of JLA when I was really getting into those DC characters.
And then you think about Ant Man, and Peyton [Reed]'s creation of that universe. And I mean, all of those are so true to the world in which they were telling the story. So when I cracked open this script, when I first got to look at this, and I knew James was so true to the darker edges of Taskforce X, what's happened with Suicide Squad, what the Suicide Squad is about. He understands the source material so implicitly, that my approach is this is going to be one of the most challenging things I've ever done as an actor, because there are all of the elements and tones influenced by the comics themselves. And that means the eighties runs as well as the early runs. He's brought all that into this. It's really challenging. And I find it through the physicality as well. And the physicality is really well defined by James with this character. So that's been really helpful for me.
Speaking of the physicality for your character, we saw in the test footage that the polka-dots are emerging from your face. So, can you describe to us how your powers work?
David Dastmalchian: The abilities that my character has could be looked at in two ways, either as an ability or as a disability, as something that can cause excruciating amounts of pain and embarrassment. So, building out and fleshing out a character who, like I said to you guys earlier, something that I immediately found is like a kindred connection with Abner was this sense of how that would weigh me down. How pain can because a person's body to kind of come inwards, and how shame can because a person's body to come downward. So it was inward and downward was kind of like finding all my physicality for Abner. And the voice grows out of that. So when I start thinking about how to build the character, to think about how his voice would work, and think about how all those mechanisms happened.
And then as you saw with the dots, and the way that when they can get out of hand, they can be literally like, almost look like sores on my body. It's really intensely painful. So that absolutely helped shape how I was going to move and fight and sit, and do all the things that I'll do in the film. And then again, how a disability or something that is considered that you're embarrassed of, or that hurts you, finding a way that you can then suddenly do something with it that's more than just suffer. Maybe it even could have a purpose. Then that changes the way you move, the way that you sit, the way you talk.
So that's been really fun too. And remember when you shoot a movie, you shoot the end here, you shoot the beginning here, you shoot this year. So it's been a really great and challenging journey to try and track that.
So is his suit kind of like a containment suit then, in a way?
David Dastmalchian: I would say it is a focusing mechanism for certain. Containment, no. Focusing, for certain. And elements, elements of the costume, which will be fun to discover, because that is a neat plot reveal, are weaponized in a really cool way. Yeah.
It must be weird to be back here, because I did a set visit for Ant Man and the Wasp in the same rooms and everything.
David Dastmalchian: I mean, it's weird, it's amazing, it's so cool. There's so much people in this, and I mean, the people, not the actors necessarily although I'm surrounded by so many talented actors. But on the production side of things, with a film like this. The cross-pollination or the, I wonder what the right word is, but there's people at such high levels of craftsmanship in their particular fields, right? So, many of them have risen to the top of these kinds of films, because they're masters of what they do. So it's fricking awesome for me to now be showing up to work and so many of the people that James has assembled for this film are people from the DC and Warner Brothers universe, the Marvel universe. And a ton of these people I've already worked with before.
So, they're friends of ours now, you know. this is the third film I've done with some of this team. The ADs, the hair and makeup, there's a stunt artist who I'm working really closely with who was my stunt double on the Dark Knight. And that was one of his first gigs. So, that's really cool. Yeah. It's neat. It's really neat to be back. And the perspective/ your life changes now. From the first time I walked into Pinewood studios, I had a newborn, and it was my first time being a part of a multi-picture franchise superhero thing that was like that.
And then all of a sudden, here my son's now five-and-a-half, and he was in here playing video games the other day.
Steve, you spoke about Guardians, and how what sounded like a fun gig turned out to be kind of physically demanding with the costume. And this is like the opposite, but it seems like it would be a totally different challenge with that performance.
Steve Agee: It's still challenging. We've done a lot of water work, and I obviously can't wear this felt suit in the water. So they gave me just a gray wetsuit, which is great when we're in the water, or in the rain, but then sitting around the whole rest of the day in a neoprene wetsuit, it's like one of those suits that a wrestler would wear to lose weight. I get home at the end of the day, and I've just got rashes all over me.
David Dastmalchian: That's not from the wetsuit.
Steve Agee: It is from the wetsuit, Dave. But yeah, I mean, there is also a chest piece I have to wear for King Shark, which they've modified, thankfully, because the first couple of weeks it was... They made it out of foam, but then they painted it, and the paint hardened, and just made it really dense. And the first thing they said was, "Oh, no. This is a lot heavier than we thought it would be."
David Dastmalchian: Not what you want to hear your first fitting.
Steve Agee: No. It was so heavy. My first day of shooting was a pre-shoot, it wasn't even the first day of principal photography. It's that one up there on the top with all the little fish. And it's just me all day running around with like a 50 pound, like girdle, like corset, like it also crushes you. So, I was just under the impression that I had to wear just a body suit and I'd be fine. And then I get there and they're like, "No, you have to wear this thing. It's called a displacement suit. So the actors know not to stand too close to you."
David Dastmalchian: And I get it. I mean, there's times when we're in tight spaces too, really tight spaces. And you'll forget, because you're like-
Steve Agee: Like, right now, he would be halfway inside of King Shark.
David Dastmalchian: Yeah. Which we hope doesn't happen to Polka Dot Man.
Steve Agee: But, I'm way luckier than... I show up 15 minutes before I have to shoot, but I don't have to wear makeup. These guys were here like what?
David Dastmalchian: Sometimes three or four hours for production.
Would you say that not only both of your characters, but all the characters on the team have individual arcs? Including the arc of the movie?
David Dastmalchian: James Gunn does not write throwaway characters. If you're going to know a character's name in this film--
Steve Agee: You have a purpose.
David Dastmalchian: That character has somewhere to go. Which again, raises those stakes. Because you don't know — and in an environment, like the one that our characters are entering — whose head could blow up at any second? So, it's, it's really intense.
Steve Agee: It's almost like Game of Thrones.
David Dastmalchian: Yeah. It feels that way sometimes. I always have to check when we get the rewrite emails.