The Suicide Squad's Polka-Dot Man actor discusses his strange powers and costume. James Gunn's first DCEU movie, which he was summoned to direct only days after Marvel fired him from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Suicide Squad focuses on the eponymous DC Comics team of supervillains. The movie is a standalone follow-up to David Ayer's 2016 critical failure, and it features a mix of both new and old antiheroes as they team up under the stern invigilation of A.R.G.U.S. director Amanda Waller to take down a South American Nazi-era prison in return for the relaxation of their sentences. The ensemble for The Suicide Squad is decidedly star-studded; it includes Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Sylvester Stallone, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, and Peter Capaldi, among many others.
One can say without a doubt that Gunn has ventured into the most obscure depths of the DC Comics lore to fill out his Task Force X roster with some truly quirky and bizarre villains. But while all characters are crazy in their own way, none is as strange as David Dastmalchian's second-class Batman villain Abner Krill/Polka-Dot Man, who turns the polka-dots on bodysuit into gadgets for use in battle. Recently, footage from The Suicide Squad offered a brief glimpse at the supervillain's uncanny and sadistic disposition. However, his battle skills weren't displayed during the video, leaving many to wonder how the film would approach Polka-Dot Man's peculiar superpowers from the comics. But now, Dastmalchian has opened up about his character's abilities and costumes, offering viewers some information about what to expect from Polka-Dot Man in The Suicide Squad.
In a conversation during Screen Rant's visit to the sets of The Suicide Squad, David Dastmalchian revealed that he sees Polka-Dot Man's powers as both a strength and a weakness. The way his body goes out of control and develops an outbreak of polka dots is something that really embarrasses and hurts Abner. And drawing inspiration from this pain and shame is what helps Dastmalchian embody the character perfectly. The actor says that as Abner, he tries to look for a way to turn his curse into a blessing, and this is how he is able to make use of his strange capabilities. And as for his costume, it helps Abner focus on his strengths rather than his disabilities as he is able to weaponize all its constituents to defeat his enemies. Read what Dastmalchian said below:
Speaking of the physicality for your character, we saw in the test footage that the polka dots are emerging from your skin and face. Can you describe to us how your powers work, and shape the character?
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... I immediately found like a kindred connection with Abner, was this sense of how that would weigh me down. How pain can cause a person's body to kind of come inwards, and how shame can cause a person's body to come downward. So it was inward and downward [and it] 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 is his suit kind of like a containment suit then, in a way?
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.
The curiosity to see how Polka-Dot Man's arc plays out in the movie is certainly understandable. Of course, there is the question of whether or not would he survive by the end of the film, as Gunn has warned audiences to not get too attached to any of the characters. But there is also some general interest in the past of this "dumbest DC character of all time," which Dastmalchian has teased is quite tragic. Gunn had earlier suggested that Polka-Dot Man became a villain because he wanted to seek vengeance from the cruel and unfair world. So now that Dastmalchian has opened about the character's harrowing powers, it makes sense why he so easily was able to mingle with the titular group of broken misfits and criminals.
As fans may already know, Gunn has tweaked Polka-Dot Man's backstory a bit and turned him into a character who is depressed because of others' perceptions of him. The concept behind Polka-Dot Man and his eerie talents does sound absurd and hilarious on-page, but as is normal with Gunn, he will surely take all those elements - whether it's the silly costume or the risible powers - and transform them into something that has more meaning, depth, and narrative significance. True, Polka-Dot Man was an odd character to choose for The Suicide Squad, especially from a selection that included more prolific villains like Joe Manganiello's Deathstroke. Still, Gunn went with it, hiring Dastmalchian to play the part, and thus, setting it up for much greater success and importance in the DCEU.
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