David Dastmalchian

How did you enjoy shooting with Mike?

David: Oh, man, it was so awesome. We had so much fun. It was like complete freedom. We just had this really raw space and he has such a specific eye about what he is looking for, so he was really good at just basically choreographing me into where he needed me to exist and then he just let me be my weird self. I felt like we had a lot of fun. It was pure art. It was definitely like we’re doing a photoshoot, but it felt like we were making something happen and it was really cool. Everybody that was collaborating there that day was really cool too, so the energy was really good and I loved – The styles were crazy. The look was so fun. Yes, man, I’m very happy. Really grateful and honored that you guys wanted me to be a part of your publication because it’s really cool and it really is really great stuff, so it’s really exciting. Thank you.

You’re a true chameleon.

David: That’s the best compliment, man. That is the greatest compliment. Thank you.

How do you feel every time you have a new challenge to change yourself? How do you prepare yourself?

David: Yes, absolutely. For me, everything starts with the script. I begin the journey inward by just absorbing the words and absorbing the story, absorbing the world that these characters are going to exist in. Then when I’m lucky, which I have been consistently lucky in my career to work with directors of vision and purpose, I get their input on what it is that they’re going to create. Then I flip everything upside down and I go from the outside in. Usually, my work begins from the outside, the world around the character. What shapes that character, what kind of environment they live in, what kind of people they’re surrounded by.
Then I start to examine how that would shape the way that the character would move their body, use their voice, what kind of clothing or camouflage or peacock feathers do they add to their persona? What kind of skin do they have? Are their hands rough? Are their hands soft? Does it hurt when they move? Do they move effortlessly? I work from that place into the discovery of what becomes really, the most important part of the character, which is what the audience is going to see, and that’s how they use their body, their voice, and their face to communicate.
That can be challenging only because sometimes my body has not moved or existed in a way that is even remotely close to the way that the character needs to move and exist, so I have to do a lot of physical work either through exercise or repetition or vocal training. Then so much of the work, honestly, is done for me on behalf of the amazing wardrobe, hair, and makeup departments that I get to work with. I’ve been so lucky. I’m a guy who grew up wanting to be Lon Chaney in Hunchback of Notre Dame or Phantom of the Opera. I love those transformative kind of characters and I’ve worked with the best in the industry who have used makeup, hair, and wardrobe to help really complete my transformation.
You’re almost like the method actor from outer planet in a way?
David: Well, there’s that? Yes, but with the difference though, for me, method actors would then if you’re a junkie, would start using drugs, or if you’re a boxer, would really get in the ring and take the punches to their face. I am quite different in that I believe my job is to convey truth through cinema or stage to the audience’s eye that often would be betrayed by my attempt to actually live the experience. Here’s an example. I did a role where I played a heroin addict. I have been in my past a heroin addict, but when we were doing the scenes of the character getting high, using the intravenous drugs, there was nothing method about the process at all.
It was entirely technical in that I was training my body, my face, my facial muscles, my neck muscles to twitch and do things that in my head, I wasn’t thinking like, “Oh, man, I’m so high right now,” or, “Oh, man, I need that drug.” What I was thinking was I need to manipulate this muscle in my face or my body so that what the camera sees, what the audience sees is going to feel real to them. That’s the most important thing. For me, in the world of method acting, it might feel the most real to the actor, but I don’t care what I feel like. What I care about is what the audience is going to experience.
I use a technique that I think helps me convey something that might not feel real to me because I have to put so much effort into the technical side of it, but that’s okay as long as the audience is tricked into believing that it was real. If you and I are doing a scene right now, and you tell me– the scene is you’re dying and I’m getting that news. Now, I could sit there and think about my death and impending mortality and really build my way up to the sorrow that would cause me to start to sob uncontrollably.
The problem with doing that, for me, personally, as an actor is that if we’re doing nine shows a week of some Tennessee Williams play in a theater in Chicago, if you’re filming me in a scene and you need to change the lights, and you need to do the retake over and over and over again, I don’t know if I could just sit there and exist in that space and continue to do that. What I try to do is technically develop the tools that I could trick you into believing that I’m actually feeling that and I could do it hopefully 100 times. That’s my goal. I want to be the kind of actor that if you needed me to do something 100 times you could ask me to do it and I wouldn’t complain. That’s my goal.

Do you have your own description for your method?

David: Technique. I will say I don’t. I trained in Chicago at a place called The Theatre School – DePaul University, which was from a tradition that came out of the Goodman School of Drama. In that place, I had teachers that were like, “Method is the way.” I had teachers that were like, “Stanislavski is the way.” I had teachers that were like, “Grotowski is the way.” That was wonderful because I picked and chose the apples and the oranges and the plums from the different baskets and I created my own little charcuterie board. I created my own picnic basket that is my work, my toolbox, which continues to evolve when I work with other great–
When I work with actors or great directors and I’ve been around so many talented actors and directors, I continue to learn new techniques. I think maybe my dream for all actors is that if you’re like, “What is your technique of acting?” You would say, “Oh, my technique is the David Dastmalchian technique.” [laughter]

You have worked on some of the most amazing films recently. BladeRunner 2049, Dune, Dark Knight among others. You were just cast for Nolan’s Oppenheimer film. Can you tell us about working with those directors, especially like with Denis Villeneuve, Christopher Nolan and James Gunn?

David: I’ve worked with, in my opinion, some of the great directors of our time. I’ve done two Marvel movies with Peyton Reed, who is a master of tone and comedy. I’ve done Christopher Nolans, The Dark Night. I worked with Denis Villeneuve on film, three different films, with James Gunn, my God, he’s a genius. With each of them, what I would say is the consistency that they all have in common because they’re all three such different directors. The thing that they all have in common is that they’re all incredibly tapped into and confident in their vision and they know how to communicate their vision to all of the artists and technicians and support system that they’ve put around them to tell their stories.
One thing that they all have in common is just this deep, deep understanding and confidence in their own vision for the story they’re trying to tell, but what makes them all unique and specific and special is their approach. Another thing that they all have deeply in common, I would say, is a warm creation of a very safe feeling space where an artist can take risks and make dangerous choices for themselves that might be scary while feeling like they’re completely in the arms of a capable parent, if you will, who’s going to keep them safe to go where they need to go. Does that make sense?

Like Denis is very great at giving me his form of direction, which is really specific and he really helps me shape my characters. My first film role ever was working with Christopher Nolan, where I was so nervous and I felt like he was really incredible at just like helping me relax and making me feel safe. I’ll never forget with James Gunn, being in the midst of a scene where I just didn’t feel like I had the ability to rise to the occasion of what was needed and I was scared and he came and just took me aside and gave me– I don’t want to say pep talk, but that’s what it is. The way that a really great parent or coach can look you in the eye and say like, “You’ve got this, you can do this.” He did that for me on several occasions. Then he went back to his chair and he yelled “action” and I was able to rise above my fear.

Would you ever consider yourself being on the other side, being the director yourself?

David: Directing is not in my DNA. I think that to direct is all of the jobs on set, you name it, from a grip, to a production designer, to a sound mixer. Every single job is insanely demanding, but there’s something about directing that I just don’t know how they do it. I look at them and I go. I don’t know how they keep all those plates spinning while maintaining tone, while maintaining leadership, while being able to get 100, 200, 2,000 people to fulfill your vision. I think you have to have a raging fire in your belly to want to direct because it’s so hard to and I don’t have that. I marvel at directors and I’m in awe of directors, but I don’t know if– I never say never, you know what I mean?
Maybe there’s going to be a moment where I’m going to go– I could see myself directing a music video. I love music videos and I love short films. Maybe at some point I’ll direct a– I’m friends with lots of musicians. I’m very lucky that I have been able to connect with a lot of musical artists who I really love. Maybe that but I do, like we were saying, I love being on the other side of the camera as far as writing goes and producing. I do like producing and bringing people together.
I think I’m really good with the– I feel like a chemist sometimes with human beings where I like to see how people from different parts of my life, who I know would compliment each other so well or would really help create incredible energy if they were brought together. I love doing that. If that’s in my living room for a game night or a party or if it would be on a set in trying to make art together, that’s one of the great joys in the work for me is being like someone who can assemble different people who I think could complement one another creatively. I really like that element of producing.

You are a big fan of graphic novels. What exactly draws you to them? As a playwright and fan.

David: Ever since I was in the third grade in the US, I was like nine years old, I stumbled into the magical world of comic books and fantasy. Then I became a regular Pilgrim to the Mecca in my hometown, which was the comic bookshop where I would spend all of my spare money on stories about Batman and the Joker or the X-Men, or the Avengers. I just loved being transported through the world of fantasy into these stories, where people who were always outsiders and always outcasts found their purpose and their belonging through the either embracing of what makes them different or overcoming the monsters and demons that are within them.
I believe that that early formative kind of love that I developed for genre being comic book, superhero, science fiction or horror was always meaningful to me in a place that was beyond just the fun of ripped superheroes and scary monsters. There was always something at play in there that was a little more esoteric, maybe a little more meaningful about the human experience and I loved that. When I got very serious about storytelling and being an actor and going into theater training, I was writing out my ideas in play form because I love plays and I love the craft of playwriting.
I’m still hoping and dreaming that someday I’ll get a fully mounted play produced in the world. I, from that, started writing scripts, which evolved into short films, which I made with my friends, which evolved into screen plays. I made a film called Animals that we talked about earlier that I was writing, but all along, I never stopped my avid collection and love for comic books. I pitched this television idea to a mentor and executive who was very supportive of my ideas. I didn’t even pitch it. Honestly, I was asking him for advice, like, “How do I pitch this TV idea that I have?”
He heard my idea and he said, “I love that idea. I think I’ll make an introduction to you to my editor friends over at Dark Horse publishing and we’ll see. I think that they might want to develop it as a comic book.” Here’s the thing, man, it’s so weird. I spent my entire life eating and consuming the donuts, and I never ever researched or learned about how you write, how you make the donuts. I never even thought about it that way. All of a sudden this idea that I’ve had for years about this comic, I did have this idea since I was a kid of it would be cool to make a comic book about a monster hunter who hides in plain sight as a TV host.
Then I went through all these battles with my own depression and addiction and mental illness, and I had this opportunity to tell the story with this comic book company, and I realized that it was like the dream format for me because in that film, you’re creating moving images with a comic book, you’re just creating these still images. It’s like snapshots. It’s like you’re telling a story and instead of using a moving picture, you’re going to take stills of the most important moments of each beat of action and then you’re going to write in, in the most concise way dialogue that will tell the story through just dialogue because you don’t have parentheticals in comic books.
You can do a couple, but it would get really boring if somebody had to sit there and read a paragraph of the narrative. You have to do it all through just visual and dialogue. I still pinch myself, I can’t believe that I am a comic book creator right now. In a few weeks, the new installments of Count Crowley are going to start hitting bookshelves. If you can imagine, there’s this grown-up man who’s now a father of a seven and four-year-old and yet I’m like a little kid. I walk into the comic book store and there’s my comic book on the shelf. It’s quite like heaven.

It’s your creation. I completely understand from your point of view. It’s amazing. Congratulations.

David: You know what’s really a gift in writing, because there are now other projects that I’m writing and developing in the comic book sphere, with them, I can then take that graphic novel to someone who say is a master of developing television or film or stage, and I can help share my idea with that person by saying, “Look, I don’t know how to make a television show out of this, but I know it could be a good television show. Here, look at this. Look this book and see if you see what I see.”
It’s really wonderful in that regard too that I’ve had some really cool, very exciting people reach out to me and be excited about my ideas for film based on what I’ve been able to do with comic books. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, man. Of all the things that I get out of it, the best is literally when I walk into my little comic shop in whatever town I’m in and my kid sees Count Crowley on the shelf or a poster on the wall and they just are so proud of dad because they know that it came from our imaginations.

In a way, I know that feeling because I used to write music and had it pressed on vinyl. I know that feeling. You walk into the music store, find your vinyl and go like, “Dude, I did this.” [laughs]

David: Yes. You can put that on the turntable and hear what you created. Music’s never been my gift, but I love it. I love music and I love musicians. Some of my closest friends are musicians and I’ve just always bonded with the musicians. They’ve gotten me in a lot of trouble, but good kinds of trouble mostly.

Do you feel that it’s going to be a feature or do you think it’s going to be more like a TV series?

David: I see it in my mind because the way that the comic book unfolds and the way my hero, her name’s Jerry, Jerry Bartman who becomes the Count Crowley, the way her story unfolds in so many chapters, to me, it would make sense to tell it as a television series because then you’ve got the time to take the journey with her that there’s so much detail and so many characters and so many story arcs that lead to the main crises in her life and the main victories and the main defeats in her life.
Right now, if you’re talking to me in February of 2022, I’d say I really would love to see this as a series where you can go the distance for several years telling these stories, but that’s not to say if someone called me tomorrow and they said, “We see the feature film two-hour version of this story that we know we’ve got this director and this person that want to help make it, and they had the vision for it.”
Of course that would be incredible, but just personally creatively right now, I see it in my mind as a television show. What do we call it now? I don’t even know what we call it. I still watch these things on a television, but it’s all, it’s streaming, it’s whatever.

Have you ever considered to be an animation?

David: I have thought about that. I think that could be super cool. There’s something about the fact that it’s set in 1983 and these monsters look and feel like traditional monsters of the past even though we come to find out that they actually operate quite differently from the traditional monsters. There’s something to me that it would be so fantastic about getting– I grew up reading Fangoria Magazine and things like this.
You think about how cool it’d be to get these top makeup or effects designers working on creating the looks of the monsters and seeing an actress putting on the makeup of Count Crowley in a live-action. That gets me the most excited right now, but again, if someone came to me and they were like, “We really want to make this series and we have this–” because think about how many cutting edge animation series right now are breaking the mold. I love what they did with Castlevania. Don’t even get me started, the Invincible series is so good. I’m a big fan of anime stuff. I love Black Butler and I love what can be done with animation.

How long did it take you to create the Count Crowley? How many years did you have this in your mind?

David: Go back with me to the ’80s in Kansas City, where I grew up, going to the comic bookshop, watching the Late Nite Creature Features. Watching Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff and Bela Lagosi and all of my early heroes. I grew up obsessed with this. I loved Universal and Hammer films and all of the movies. I love all horror, especially those classic Creature Features and Monster Mania midnight movies. For years and years, starting around age 12, which is when I think I saw the movie, The Lost Boys for the first time, I remember thinking how cool it was the idea of being someone who had a regular job, like maybe worked in a comic bookshop or worked as a horror host on a TV show, who actually was fighting monsters when no one else was aware of how dangerous the threat of monsters was.
Like in Buffy how no one realizes that there’s actually vampires everywhere except for this cheerleader, who’s going to kill all the vampires. I love that idea. That was it, it was pretty simple idea, pretty basic. Maybe not enough to actually dig your teeth into something that is going to be meaningful enough to carry a full comic book or a TV show or movie, but that was my idea as a kid, as a teenager, as somebody in my 20s and 30s.
In my 20s, 30s, getting into my 40s, I have now come up on almost– In May, I’ll have 20 years of being clean from heroin and sober from alcohol and drugs. I’ve been a clean and sober person for 20 years. In that journey and that battle against my inner demons and monsters, I’ve also confronted my own battle with depression and anxiety, and mental illness. All of those themes started to resonate in what could make this hero character of mine so meaningful and why the story needed to be told.
Then over here in the states, all of a sudden the political landscape and the social landscape turned into this battleground where racism rose to power in 2016, and all of a sudden women and minorities, and LGBTQ community were being targeted in ways that I thought we had moved past. I was like, “Oh my God, the monsters are in power. The monsters are controlling news and information.” Now I really got where the story was going. I was about to really dig into writing my story and Jerry, my hero was Jerry with a Y, it was a man.
I was talking to several different friends of mine, my wife, and several of my close female friends. Hearing their stories about horrible things that had happened at the hands of powerful men and how the women had always been disbelieved and told that they were being overreactive or hysterical, I thought, that’s it, that’s it. That’s the last element I was missing was this, my hero is not a man. It’s a woman, and she’s going to end up being this badass monster hunter who isn’t a sex symbol.
She’s not going to be in a bikini with a sword. I God love her. I grow up loving Red Sonja and I love all these hot monster-hunting women, but I wanted this one to be more Punk rock, more ragged t-shirt and smeared makeup and combat boots, and using a hedge clipper to try and cut out a heart of a vampire. I want it to be gritty and gory and rough, and that’s how it all came to be.

When you create your characters, do you prefer to work day, night, morning, evenings? What kind of environment do you have to be in in order to create and also the team that you work with as well, the graphic team?

David: That’s a great question. It’s a really good question. For me, it’s very interesting and it’s an evolving process that continues to change and grow because of two major factors. First, I’m a parent, I have a four and seven-year-old, and my children and my wife are my priority above all things so the schedule is built around where I need to be, to be the most present parent and partner that I can be. Then secondly, I’m an actor and acting is one of the biggest parts of my life. It’s the work that I do and the work that I love.
It requires me to be often traveling on airplanes, living in hotels, living in Airbnbs, rental houses, sitting around on set for eight hours, waiting to do one take because they have to get everything perfect to get that shot. I’ve learned, and I continue to learn how to be as productive as possible with the time that the universe has created for me in my day. That is very strange. Sometimes it’s late, late at night, in which case the coffee comes in very handy.
Sometimes it is in the middle of the afternoon, which is always nice because when our kids are at school and my wife and I have the house to ourselves, we can work, and then we can go make out when we want to take a break. Then when I’m on the road, if I’m stuck in a hotel for a weekend by myself, I’m not out looking at my location jobs like vacations. I definitely try to look at them as work, so I try to utilize all that time that I have to write.
Like at the given moment right now, I’m writing something for a television series that I’ve helped create. I’ve got a comic book that I am writing, and when I finish a script, I’m then sending that to an editor who shares it with my artist and my colorist. There’s that whole communication that happens digitally, and by phone sometimes. Then I have a feature that I co-wrote with a writer in New York, which we are developing and preparing.
I’ve got another feature that will be shooting in the late spring. The director is helping me do rewrites on that. There’s a play that I’m writing right now, so finding the time and the discipline to carve into my schedule is something that I have to be really malleable and fluid with, and yet I have to also be really disciplined about because those pockets of time are set in stone. I’m at the mercy of many other people’s schedules.

The process of creating the graphic novel, I would presume will be completely different from writing a script in terms of you can’t just pop the let’s say, FadeIn software or something, and start writing? Do you sketch a little bit?

David: The process is in certain ways, strikingly similar to the screenwriting process in that there is a final draft template for graphic novel, and it depends on the publisher. Like Dark Horse publishing has a certain template that they like, DC has a certain template, Model has the template that they like. Basically, there is a lot of similarity to cinema screenwriting in that your slug line, which, in a comic book is really your page number.
You start each page with, okay, this is going to be page one. You decide how many panels are going to go on that page. Then each page, you write a description similarly to the way that you would in a screenplay, except there’s a lot of freedom. For me, certain times, I know exactly visually what I want it to look like, and I’ll write hyper-specific descriptions of every detail of the room or the location in which this scene is happening. Sometimes, I know what I want a space to feel like, and I use more abstract emotional descriptions. I trust my artists, who I’ve worked with now for years, that he knows how to create and interpret that and make it. Then the dialogue, it’s all about for me nailing that dialogue because I know my artist is going to nail the look. Then, sometimes, if there’s like a physical way, like I’m trying to describe like, “Okay, she’s going to jump off of the refrigerator and grab her throat from here, and they’re going to fall through the floor here.”
I will draw a little like bad stick figure sketches of how I see it working, but usually, I leave that to the artist. I will say though, in the preparation before I actually sit down to write the script, I do what a lot of us do in screenwriting where we write a treatment. I write a treatment, usually, a two-page treatment for every issue of the comic book, and in the treatment, when I reach a certain scene or location or character, I’ll go on the internet. I’ll find and pull different reference photos that I think will be helpful for me to inspire me when I’m writing.
I include those in my document so that as I am referring to it when I’m writing, I have some visual inspirations. Yes, there’s an economy to it as well, where you’re going, “Okay, I know I would love to have 12 panels per page for 20 pages, but that’s not good comic book writing. Certain pages I have to go, we’re going to only have two panels on this page, and they’re going to be really important to getting a close up on the face of our hero as they’re about to lose this battle. We’re going to have eight panels on this other page because it’s really quick demonstrating how fast she’s trying to run on the room, looking for her lost weapon, and all of that comes into play.

I’ve spoken to a number of screenwriters, but never to comic book writers. That is pretty impressive to hear how you structure from panel to panel because it’s quite different.

David: Yes, and I’m still learning. Like I said, man, there’s so much for me to learn on this journey, and I’m just so grateful to be collaborating with people like my editor, my artist. These other people that are starting to come into my life as creative collaborators who show me. Like I said, way back earlier in our conversation, I’ve been eating the donuts my whole life, but I never really thought about how they make them. Now, when I go back, my wife got me this really great new set of box shelves for my comic book collection because I have thousands and thousands of comic books.
I’ve been organizing them and rebagging in them and just redoing my organizational system for my comics. I’ve been revisiting old comic books for my childhood that I haven’t looked at in 20 years, and I’m starting to look at them now with this totally different eye. For you, I’m sure when you start writing, and then you go look at a Luc Besson film or you go look at a Martin Perez film, where you look at anybody, you go, “The way I saw good fellas when I was a kid is completely different than the way I analyze that film now.”
The way I saw Breaking the Waves when I was 16 and the way I look at it now with narrative structure and the power of dialogue, and the way that those scenes were written, I go, “Holy shit, it’s like incredible.”
Since I was a little boy, we have a big thing in the US. I don’t know if it’s an international thing, I’ve only gotten a few from the UK, but growing up here, Halloween is such a big holiday for us over here.
We do these records that used to come out vinyl. Now, they don’t do them anymore, but they used to put out all kinds of vinyl records with the scary sounds. It was usually done by recording studios would produce them because they made money. They would have scary sound effects, scary stories. Sometimes there was music on them, like the Monster Mash and things like this, and I’ve been collecting those records. I’ve got 50-plus records now and my wife is very cool. She framed most of my best-looking collection and let me hang them in the hallway in our upstairs. Yes, I love it.

You just wrapped up a film, The Boston Strangler just recently with Keira Knightley.

David: It’s based on the true story of the Boston Strangler, which was a serial killer in Boston, Massachusetts, in the early 1960s.
It’s very strange, there’s a lot of strangers, but there’s a very strange, very sad, very tragic, very haunting story about not only the horror of a serial killer, the horror of a mad criminal like that. But really the horror and the obstacles of really fractured justice systems and journalistic obstacles. The way that we share information and the still, we’re battling it now, but 1962 is such a snapshot into the struggles that women faced when they were trying to just do their job. It’s not like those problems have been solved.
Obviously, we still have an incredibly dense culture rife with toxic patriarchy and toxic misogyny. This story, to me, the film, the director who also wrote it, Matt Ruskin, is just fantastic, and I’m really excited for people to see it.

Do you have any fun memories from the sets?

David: A fun story from recently was doing The Suicide Squad with James Gunn and being on that set with Idris Elba, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, and Peter Capaldi. These actors, who I am in awe of, who are so cool and amazing and just wonderful. Here we are in the scorching heat of Panama, shooting a really intense battle sequence in which we are in these full superhero costumes and covered in fake blood and dust. We didn’t have a fancy place to go relax. We were just sitting.
We had chairs but we were sitting in a tiny, little room that I think was maybe used to be a little, tiny hole in the wall bar, but they were putting us in there in between takes. We were trying to stay out of the sun because it was so hot, and one of my best friends in the world, Steve Agee, he’s one of the stars of the show Peacemaker, that’s been a big hit for HBO. He played that same character in The Suicide Squad, but he also was the guy who stood in for the shark, for the King Shark. He was there with us the whole time. Daniela Melchior, who’s now this rising big star, was there who was the Ratcatcher.
All of these, crammed into this little space and we’re so exhausted, and we’ve been shooting this incredible movie. Margot looked around at us and was like, “Who wants a snack?” and everybody was like, “I do. I’m hungry. I’m hungry.” Somehow, she managed to get someone to bring us McDonald’s in the middle of this battle zone. In the middle of a battle zone, we sat there and had cheeseburger. I hadn’t eaten McDonald’s in so long. We had cheeseburgers, French fries, milkshakes, and chicken nuggets, and I have pictures too. I have to see if I can find them. It was so fun.
You think, “Oh my gosh. I’m sitting here with some of the greatest actors on the planet and I’m working on the biggest movie in the world.” Really, we’re all just huddled together, making jokes, laughing, being ridiculous, telling fart jokes, being stupid, and then getting McDonald’s. Those moments that you never forget. These are just real people, really wonderful, good people, who are going to work hard, but also aren’t pretentious and aren’t anything other than just really good people that you want to hang out with and eat McDonald’s with. It was so crazy. [laughter]

Do you guys stay in touch?

David: Yes, absolutely. In fact, Margot’s company, LuckyChap, is one of the production companies making the Boston Strangler. I’m very, very lucky to be a part of this movie for so many reasons. It’s being produced by LuckyChap, which is Margot’s company that she runs with her husband, Tom, and their business partner, Josey, and a bunch of wonderful filmmakers. Ridley Scott’s company, which is called Scott Free Productions, which they make and help produce some of the best movies in Hollywood. Those two companies have come together to produce this film, the Boston Strangler, for 20th Century and Hulu.
For me, it’s amazing and you build these working relationships who sometimes, if you’re lucky, become friendships, and for me, I’m very lucky that I feel Margot is such an incredible human being. Obviously, one of the most busy people in the world. Not like we ever get to see her but when we do my kids love to death, man. She’s a very special person. Steve Agee, obviously, he’s one of my best friends. I see him all the time.
Daniela Melchior and Steve and I have an ongoing WhatsApp thread of very inappropriate jokes that we continue to send one another. Joel Kinnaman, I got to go to his birthday party a few weeks ago and celebrate his birthday with his amazing partner, Kelly. I’m trying to say, Peter Capaldi and I stay close.
James Gunn has become one of my closest friends in the world. Yes, man, wonderful people. Idris is in the UK most of the time when he’s not working, and we still get to text and stay in touch. It’s a shame that Polka-Dot Man got squished so badly because I would love to get to make more movies with him.

I’d love to know if you support any charities or any special causes that you do?

David: Thank you for asking me. To me, we’re living in a time when we are seeing the cost of the devaluation of education. I am really digging in, and I’m trying to put as much money and energy, and time into supporting education, science education, access to education and information for all people, regardless of their socioeconomic background. Because I think we’ve seen in recent years, how easy it is to manipulate people who don’t have access to the tools that come with the education that we should be giving to all people. I think that for me in the States, supporting organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union is very important.
Because we’re seeing right now a huge trend in a lot of state governments against LGBTQ youth. I think there’s a massive crisis of suicide and depression with young people. Especially those who are struggling with their identity, sexually or otherwise, and I think that we need to support these people and stop trying to marginalize them. It pisses me off because it’s fucking ridiculous. I personally get to go every year with David Koechner, Paul Rudd, Jason Sudeikis, and Eric Stonestreet they’re all big, hilarious, amazing comedians, but they have big hearts, and they do this wonderful. A bunch of other artists who I love to support the Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, where I grew up. I think they’ve raised over $20 million dollars for this children’s hospital, and I love getting them going and try and help raise money with them.
The Arts for All People is really important, especially people that aren’t given as many opportunities to explore the arts because we know that you should do the arts, whether you’re going to become a professional or not. It doesn’t matter. The arts are beneficial, whether you’re going to be like, you’re a writer and a musician, and all of this. There are people who writing and making music, maybe they’re not going to make a living doing it, but it’s still important for the soul and the mind. I work, when I’m in LA on Saturdays, with a theater company called the Born to Act Players.
Which is an incredible 25-year-old theater company of developmentally disabled adults that get to perform, put on shows, and do music, dance, musicals, and I love it, man. It’s a really important organization.

If you could give advice to your younger self, what sort of advice would you give yourself?

David: I would say to young me, you belong here. It took me far too long to understand and believe that I do belong here on Earth, that there is a place for me where I can help, benefit other people’s lives and be a part of this experience. That it can be meaningful, purposeful, and positive. I spent a long time really doubting my value, my worth, that I belonged. I lost a lot of years trying to destroy myself. I don’t regret those years because the time that I spent nearly killing myself and running away from myself, and losing daily battles with my own shadows are the battlefields that I think my voice was shaped in and on. I’m grateful for that time because I survived it.
A lot of people don’t survive that kind of self-doubt. I hope everybody reading this, wherever they are, whatever they’re doing, will take this same advice for me. You belong here. Whether you believe that or not, it is absolutely true. I hope they’ll believe it.

I really appreciate your time, thank you for the insightful conversation. You’re genuine and authentic!

David: I’m still learning so much. I’m trying to be my most authentic self possible. Luckily, I work with a publicist who has been with me since before anybody knew who I was. Always believed in me, and always said like, “You’re gonna make it, and I’m going work with you.” I’m getting to that place where I feel, I can be my most authentic self.
I don’t know, if you saw the Dune London premiere, I was like I’m wearing makeup. I want to be what makes me feel the best. I want to wear makeup, I want to dress the way I want to dress. I want to wear my nail polish and embrace all of the things about me, both stylistically and personally, that maybe people might make fun of or take shots at. I’m surrounded by people, from my wife, to my publicity team, to my artistic collaborators, who go like, “Be you be proud of who you are.” When you wanted to put me in your magazine. I was like, “That’s really cool man. It’s a really good feeling.” So thank you so much!