Nicolas Cage might arguably be held up as the most famous comic book aficionado in Hollywood given his lifelong obsession that stretches so far he even named his son Kal-El, but David Dastmalchian should never be left out of the conversation.
The actor has been a diehard devourer of superhero stories for all of his days, and he’s parlayed that into a lengthy stint popping up in a variety of roles across multiple different franchises. Since making his feature film debut in The Dark Knight, Dastmalchian has gone on to appear in the Ant-Man trilogy as both Kurt and hole-obsessed Veb, while he stole plenty of scenes as The Suicide Squad‘s Polka-Dot Man.
In addition, he’s lent his presence to Gotham and The Flash on the small screen, as well as supplying his vocal talents to animated adaptation Batman: The Long Halloween as both the Penguin and Calendar Man, and we haven’t even mentioned his status as the creator of Dark Horse Comics’ Count Crowley.
In short; Dastmalchian lives and breathes the comic book genre, so it’s no surprise he revealed to ScreenRant that he’d be open to playing any number of roles in James Gunn’s revamped DCU, so long as he gets the opportunity to play in the sandbox.
“After doing this incredible role through motion capture, I feel like there’s no limit to the number of characters that I would love to see or bring to life in both the DC and the Marvel Universe. Ranging from the Scarecrow to the Mad Hatter all the way to Krypto. Gosh, there’s so many.
I always felt [DC] had the best villains; I always felt that way… On the DC side of things, it was definitely Scarecrow, Solomon Grundy; maybe through motion capture. Although they would probably want to hire somebody a little more big than me, I’d be willing to go to the gym and get as big as I could possibly get for Grundy.
There’s so many, and James is the perfect person to be the captain of that ship. It’s just the most exciting time for us DC fans to see what he’s doing. He’s a legend, he’s a genius, and he’s a beautiful human being. I hope that at some point there’s room for Firestorm and Martian Man Hunter.”
Given that The Suicide Squad may or may not be accepted as official canon moving forward, the door always remains open, especially when the co-CEO has gained a reputation for casting several regular collaborators in multiple projects, a box Dastmalchian has already ticked after also appearing in the Gunn-produced horror The Belko Experiment.