DUBAI: There’s a lot more heart in “The Suicide Squad” than you might expect. Sure, there’s don’t-bring-your-kids levels of violence brought about by a group of supervillains sent on a lethal black-ops mission to destroy a giant alien in a tropical Central American country, most of whom will never return, but this is a James Gunn movie, after all, and in a James Gunn movie, there’s heart and soul.
“I do seem to gravitate towards explosions and things, but I like personal interaction most of all. I like the small, nuanced performances and big emotions, all happening in the shadow of a giant walking starfish. I like both those things together. I think we can have it all with ‘The Suicide Squad,’” Gunn tells Arab News.
“The Suicide Squad,” now in cinemas across the Middle East, is a standalone film set in the DC Extended Universe, and while it exists in the same ‘world’ as Superman and Batman, the film deals mostly with characters much lower on the ladder, often two-bit baddies who never got the spotlight.
Gunn, who previously helmed the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, knows a thing or two about elevating previously obscure characters, having turned D-listers such as Starlord, Rocket Racoon and Drax the Destroyer into household names over at Marvel. With “The Suicide Squad,” Gunn attempts the same thing, this time doing it with older audiences in mind, even if he can never shed his boyish sense of play and wicked sense of humor.
“With ‘The Suicide Squad,’ I was making an R-rated movie that’s aimed towards a slightly older audience. With ‘Guardians,’ I’m writing something that needs to appeal to adults and the children. You speak differently if you go into a room of 18-year-olds than if you’re in a room with six-year-olds,” Gunn continues.
(L-R) IDRIS ELBA and writer/director JAMES GUNN on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ action adventure “THE SUICIDE SQUAD,” a Warner Bros. (© 2021 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.)
The movie brings back the best ingredients from the 2016 David Ayer-helmed “Suicide Squad,” including that film’s main attraction: Margot Robbie’s superstar-making turn as Harley Quinn, who, as the manic ex-girlfriend of The Joker (or Mr. J, as she calls him), has become a cultural force of nature, inspiring what feels like half of all Halloween costumes over the last five years and earning her own spin-off film, 2020’s “Birds of Prey.” For Robbie, the biggest joy in returning to the character was Gunn himself.
“He’s incredible. He’s a dream director to work with because he knows what he wants but he’s also thrilled to get something that he wasn’t expecting. And that gives you creative freedom, which is so fun on set, but it also makes you feel like you’re in incredibly safe hands, especially when you’re playing a character that is doing kind of crazy things and you take a chance with them. It’s nice working with someone who is also taking chances,” says Robbie.
“The Suicide Squad” is now in cinemas across the Middle East. (© 2021 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.)
“He’ll tell you if it looks stupid, but if it looks stupid in a great way, you know he’s also going to be really happy about it,” she continues. “He creates the perfect atmosphere where everything’s prepped, everything’s planned, he’s built this incredible playground for you to play in, but you know no matter what, there’s a safety net and whatever happens, if you fall, he’s still going to make that fall look incredible, and that’s a really nice and liberating feeling.”
Gunn’s style of relying first and foremost on his collaborators, putting them in a trusting and caring environment, allowed him to pull out more from each of the actors. Even A-listers such as Idris Elba found in “The Suicide Squad” a space they could explore facets of their skill they never had the chance to before.
“I have to tell you that this was one of the most enjoyable characters that I’ve ever played. There are so many comedy moments that I will never have in another character,” says Elba, who plays Bloodsport, an assassin in jail for trying to kill Superman.
While the heart of the film stems from Gunn’s good nature and buoyancy of spirit, on screen the soul rests in the characters you’d least suspect, such as David Dastmalchian’s stellar turn as the Polka-Dot Man, a psychotically depressed villain whose power is — yep — shooting polka dots at people. Dastmalchian’s character pulls you in like no other in the film, and Gunn’s compassionate set allowed Dastmalchian to tap into his own truth and imbue that in the character.
DANIELA MELCHIOR as Ratcatcher 2 in Warner Bros. Pictures’ superhero action adventure “THE SUICIDE SQUAD,” a Warner Bros. (© 2021 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.)
“(Polka-Dot Man) is really struggling with who he is in the world, and that is something that I’ve been able to relate to personally because when I was a young person struggling with spots on my body from vitiligo, a skin condition I have … I was very insecure about that as a kid,” says Dastmalchian.
“Beyond that, I also have spots on the inside. That’s something we all have. We all have things we’re really ashamed of or embarrassed about when it comes to ourselves internally. And coming to understand that the things that make us different could become powers or abilities is one of the life locks to the human experience. This character, and this movie, allowed us to explore that.”
Daniela Melchior, the Portuguese actress who plays Ratcatcher 2, agrees.
“We will always have something relatable to these main characters. Even if we don’t act like them, even if we don’t do the bad things they do, we have the same motives or the same emotions,” says Melchior. “That’s why we loved to watch Joker’s spin off, and that’s why people are going to love this.”
