David Dastmalchian Is Living The Nerd's Dream [Exclusive Interview]
When David Dastmalchian tells me he's living the nerd's dream, I believe him. The avid horror fan and comic book reader (and comic book writer) is shaping up to have his most prolific year to date. In addition to writing and producing under his new production company, he has upcoming roles in a Stephen King adaptation, Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer," "The Boston Strangler," and two promising horror movies on the way: "Last Voyage of the Demeter" and "Late Night with the Devil."
On top of all that, Dastmalchian reunited with director Peyton Reed for Marvel Studios' for "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania." The actor doesn't reprise his role of Scott Lang's pal with the illustrious hair, Kurt Goreshter; instead, he plays a new character kept a secret until about a day or two ago. We won't spoil the new character, since Dastmalchian wants audiences to discover it for themselves. Recently, the actor took the time to discuss his upcoming year, his love of Vincent Price, and why he's living his nerdiest dreams.
Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
'If there is one thing that Thanos could not destroy with the snap...'
Was Kurt affected by the Blip? Remind me, did we see or learn what happened to him?
We didn't, but the reality is, what happened to Kurt was that his physical body was turned to dust for a number of years, but his hair never dissolved. If there is one thing that Thanos could not destroy with the snap ... he made Spider-Man go bye-bye. He made half of existence disappear, but he could not make Kurt's hair go away, and that's the power of Kurt's hair. Kurt is currently doing his thing. He's back, obviously. They were able to return everyone from the snap. He looks better than ever. If you saw "What If...?", which I think was so brilliant, Kurt unfortunately had a pretty sad end in that. But that's an alternate universe.
When you first got involved with "Ant-Man," did you and Peyton ever discuss where he hoped the series would go?
Peyton plays it close to the vest. He doesn't tip his hand as to what his vision is for the future, other than to give you enough clues as an actor and an artist to be able to give him what he needs. All I knew when he finished "Ant-Man and the Wasp" was he said to me, "If I get to make a third one of these, I can't wait to tell you where it's going and what's going to happen." He said it with this glint of just magic in his eye.
I'll never forget, because I was so proud of "Ant-Man and The Wasp." I thought it was such a great film and I loved what it said about family and about families ripped apart and what it said about overcoming our own fears. I loved it. It was such a special film and making it was such a special experience. When he finished, he told me, "If I get to do a third one of these, just you wait," so I sat and I waited. But it was hard to wait, because I always bugged him. I'd be like, "Tell me, tell me, tell me." He is a good secret keeper.
When did he finally tell you what he had in mind for you to do in this one?
I was in Berlin. He called me in, I want to say, summer, maybe fall of 2021. It was really amazing, Jack. I was having a terrible day.
You had a really tough shoot, right?
I was having a really tough shoot. I was in the middle of a really challenging creative process. I had lost my mother within the previous year and my father was dying. The world was in a questionable place, considering the pandemic and all the stress that we were all under and fear of the future. Peyton called me and he said, "Are you ready to hear what I'm doing?" I said, "I'm ready, man." He started telling me about this film that he was making, and I smiled like I hadn't smiled in quite a while, listening to him talk about it and hearing that signature Peyton Reed excitement in his voice.
I get choked up thinking about this. I'll never forget. I remember I was standing in a hotel room and pacing. I was getting so excited, just listening to him talk about what he was going to do and what everyone is about to see. Then, he told me that he wanted me to be a part of the telling of that story, and I was truly moved. I'm so grateful for him and I'm so grateful for my Marvel family, that I get to be a part of telling this really vital story to the MCU as a whole, but also Scott and all these other characters' journeys.
'Peyton is my lucky marble'
Your new role has mostly remained a secret throughout production, right?
I think that's still kind of a secret. I'm not trying to be coy about it. What I'm excited about is, without saying much about my character, the experience of just watching this film. Then, when you make the discovery of my appearance in it, hopefully it's an added fun part of the experience for you. One, I've never played a character remotely like the character I'm playing in this film. Two, I've never had as much joy in working as I did in playing this character. Now, that's not to say that the character wasn't challenging or demanding of me, but being back on a Peyton Reed set, being in the company of these amazing artists, getting to work on this was one of the most joyful experiences I've ever had working on a film.
I've had some f***ing joyful experiences. You know that. I love my f***ing job so much. I think about standing on the set of "The Suicide Squad," and I think about marching down LaSalle Street in "The Dark Knight," and I think about being a part of the majesty that was "Dune." Even my baby films, like "Animals" and "All Creatures Here Below" and these other films that I've loved working on — but being back with Peyton, that was some of the most joy I've ever had. He put me into a special place as an actor that I needed to get back to. I went from working with him into a string of projects that ended up being all incredibly fulfilling, joyful, positive, creatively satisfying. I have this lucky marble and it's got a little ant in it, and I always have it with me because it brings me good luck. I'll show it to you. Here's my lucky marble.
Very cool.
You can post a picture of that. Peyton is my lucky marble.
Do you call the ant in the marble Peyton?
[Laughs] I guess I should, yeah.
Just an idea. But yes, throughout all your positive experiences, even just the idea of getting killed in the world of "Blade Runner," that must be a joy, too, right?
I was talking yesterday to my friend about "Blade Runner" and Sylvia [Hoeks], who killed me in that role. Watching her performance in that film, getting to be on a set with Denis [Villeneuve], which I've gotten the honor of getting to do three different movies now, and being filmed by Roger Deakins, what a f***ing life for this nerd, man. I didn't just hit the lottery. Someone gave me a roll of lottery tickets and every one's a winner. I can't tell you how grateful I am right now. It's surreal.
Your year is stacked. You also got to reunite with Christopher Nolan for "Oppenheimer," which looks like a gigantic indie. How is he as a communicator on set?
He knows what it is that he wants and needs, and he's very clear about helping you get there. He's an enigma to me. He's so extraordinary, his vision for things. I've gotten to work with him twice now. I just pinched myself. I can't believe that, but he's one of the human beings that I sit back and I'm in awe, because he has such an incredible mind for cinema, and he's just a very good communicator. That's plain and simple.
'I think of Vincent Price and how powerfully he could use his voice, his eyes, his gaze, his delivery'
It's always nice to see Mr. Vincent Price behind you [in your office]. I just watched him in "Theater of Blood" for the first time.
So good. It's so good.
Amazing. He called that his best performance.
That, "Pit and the Pendulum," and "Usher." He was so good at everything he did. He was a master, man. I think that "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" is such a blast to watch, too. Yeah, he's the best, man.
Him, Christopher Lee, and those actors you love — what about them and how they approached their work inspires you?
Look at the expressiveness that someone like Lon Chaney can bring to his work, even under this intense layering of makeup and wires and paint. There's something to me that's super inspiring about someone being in a movie that, for all intents and purposes, is a modern day folktale fable, that is, to most people, a tale told to just make you shiver and scream. There's a lot more to the genre than that, but I think a lot of people do go to this to see a good spooky picture, just for the fun of the roller coaster that it is.
Vincent Price or Lon Chaney or Boris Karloff or Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing brought the level of technical artistry and proficiency to bring these characters to life without any sense of irony. Some of the pictures they did that were comedic or more campy, there was a sense of irony, but in a large majority of the body of their works, you're looking at actors that brought their heart and soul to every frame and every line and every performance. To me, that's what made films like "Frankenstein" make me cry, what made Oliver Reed's performance in "Curse of the Werewolf" so captivating for me. I always think of Vincent Price and how powerfully he could use his voice, his eyes, his gaze, his delivery. All that training that he spent years developing on the stage to tell stories that maybe some people were like, "That's just silly."
I love it. I think it's beautiful, and it inspires me. Because when I show up to a film set, and let's say it's a superhero film or a monster picture and there's green screens or blue screens, or there's pumps of fake blood getting primed up to spray all over the place, I guess it would be easy to maybe take a step back and turn down the levels of engagement a bit, but I don't want the easy way. I want to do it the way my heroes did it, and I want to find my way to get lost into that stuff and tell stories that transport people no matter what the genre is.
Like Price, you have a background in theater. When actors like Brando came along, he decided to lean into his training in theater to stand out. For you, when you're making "Ant-Man" movies, how does your theater background help you?
The easiest way to describe it is to say I think every actor should spend time on stage. I had to figure out how to convincingly and effectively communicate lines of text from, let's say, a master like Tennessee Williams at two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon to an audience where I'm delivering a monologue, which is a direct address to an audience of people, many of whom would be staring at me, rapt with engagement, but many of whom were falling asleep or looking for candies in their bags or checking their phones, and that didn't mean s***.
So what? It didn't matter. I wasn't there to worry about whether or not they were digging in their purses or not. There was somebody out there in that house that was locked in with me, and my job was to tell that story and deliver those lines as they were written with as much proficiency as I could possibly muster under the guidance of whatever director had directed me in that play.
When I think about being on set, there's gaffers and electricians and boom operators and special effects artists and ADs running around, pulling their hair out, trying to keep us on schedule. There are giant blue screens and green screens because we can't build a giant forest for everything that we need when we're supposed to be in the jungle or whatever. We're in Dracula's castle. Well, sometimes we need to put that stuff up. To me, the power of my imagination, the power of believing what it is that I'm trying to do is all that matters. All those years of having to believe that I was in a realistic setting when I was actually in a small storefront theater in Chicago looking at 25 empty folding chairs, it's magic to me. It's the magic of the imagination.
'I cannot f***ing wait for people to see it'
Talking about audiences, it's telling what movies they're showing up to see and what's doing well at the box office. Have the last few years, in particular, influenced how you write your own stories or think about an audience?
Well, I'm excited for people to — February 8, we're going to be releasing in comic stores everywhere the newest volume of "Count Crowley," which is volume 2. I think if there are genre fans, comic book fans, readers out there who have at all engaged with any of the writing that I've been doing over the last 10 years of my career in film and comics, I think you'll see, hopefully, a shift in the way in which characters are interacting, not only with the inner turmoil that they're facing as individuals, but how that thread connects directly into the experiences they're having in the outside world. Because something I had come barreling down on me over the last several years of the difficult times that we faced in the world was how many of the really challenging battles that I was fighting inside of myself were so powerfully represented and observable in the world at large.
Many times the things that I needed to work on and strengthen and develop and heal in myself were ways that then I could turn around and give something of meaning to the world, hopefully have a positive effect on the world. I think that resonated with me, in a way, narratively more clearly than ever before over the last, I'd say, few years. I like to believe my writing has taken a step forward. I'm excited for these new projects that are coming that I'm putting together for people to see, because I do believe I'm not only maturing as a human being, but as a writer. I'm surrounding myself with great artists who are elevating me and pushing me to go further than I've ever gone before. I'm also surrounding myself with great friends and people and therapists who are encouraging me to go further and push myself into places that will help me grow as a person.
Creatively, what other experiences have you found exciting recently? You have so many movies coming out.
Talking about that joy that I got off of working with Peyton on "Ant-Man," it propelled me into the year that followed, which was highlighted with a big, bright raging roman candle ball of fury by the experience of making this film called "Late Night with the Devil," which I haven't gotten to talk about very much. There's a lot of surprises to that film. I will say that doing the amount of studying I had to do and getting into the skin of this guy, and understanding the pressure that he was under by being, say, second place to Johnny Carson, by knowing that his show was something that could potentially be given the axe at any moment, it was something I can relate to completely as an actor.
I'm sure you can relate to it as a writer. We know how that feels and what that did to him and the place that pushed him when everything leads up to that fateful night that the movie takes place in. Dude, I hope you're front and center and see it at SXSW. I haven't seen the movie yet, but if audiences get 10% of a jolt as much as I got out of making that film, then I think we've got something special. I cannot f***ing wait for people to see it.
'My cat is just trashing my office right now'
How's your to-do list looking for the year?
I just started my new one for 2023, and it is chock full of to-do's. Sometimes I look at it and it gives me the doo doos. Bubblegum! My cat is just trashing my office right now. Bubblegum, can you not right now? My God. She's got a to-do list. Her to-do list is to give me constant grief. I love you, cat. You're such a sweetie, but my God.
[Laughs] What do you have on your list?
I just launched my production company called Good Fiend Films. It's the culmination of ideas that I've been trying to manifest and bring together and materialize for my whole life. It's exploring all the complicated and difficult questions and ideas specifically through the lens of genre. I'm tackling horror, science fiction, and anything within the comic book and superhero realm, with all of the love that I have for character-driven stories and wrestling with all the big questions that make life so tricky and beautiful for me.
I sold a television series that I can't announce yet, but we've been working on it for about a year, and we'll be hopefully talking about that shortly. That is right in the space of genre. It's a mashup of a lot of things I love with a lot of people I love. Then, I've got two features that we are right now hopefully transitioning from development into pre-production over the course of the spring.
As you know, my comic book and publishing journey is so important to me. It's such an important space for me to tell stories. I'm going to continue to develop and grow Jerri Bartman's journey as Count Crowley into the future that I've always dreamed of for her. That future does include seeing her story told through the lens of the camera.
That's great.
That's a project we're working on at the time, and then I've got a couple new comic book projects that I'm going to be able to announce hopefully within the next six months. My to-do list right now is stacked. On top of it, most importantly, is just being aware of and doing my best to maintain my mental health and continuing my journey of sobriety and trying to be the best husband that I can be and the best father that I can be and the best friend that I can be and the best citizen that I can be.
I want 2023 to be this really explosive year for me, because I've worked really hard towards this moment. It's a year that's going to have a lot of cool celebrations, because there's a lot of cool things that are going to be coming out — movies and books I've helped work on. But also, with that kind of energy comes an opportunity to try and dig back into myself and look at what it is that's working for me, but also what are the things that I could improve upon to elevate myself as a human.
"Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" is in theaters now.