The role of Rick Flagg Jr. in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie has been a revolving door of high caliber actors flirting with the little-known comic book role. Initially Warner Bros. announced that Tom Hardy would be portraying Flagg, the field general and liason for the Squad. Hardy surprisingly dropped out of the role and the search began again. In the midst of award show campaigning, Jake Gyllenhaal took a long look at playing the character, but ultimately turned down the opportunity. Rumors began to circulate questioning the quality of the role and many began to wonder if there were structural reasons for the actors deciding to leave.
Things had been relatively quiet in regards to Flagg until recently. There was buzz that Robocop’s Joel Kinnaman had nabbed the role, however almost all attention has been diverted to Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Will Smith’s Deadshot, and Jared Leto’s Joker. However, today in a junket for Run All Night, Kinnaman spoke to ScreenRant and confirmed his involvement in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie.
“I love the script. It’s super entertaining and David Ayer is a really interesting director. You know there’s a lot of flashy directors who are good with the camera, but when you get people who are from another aspect of filmmaking into a director’s role, you’re always very happy if it’s a writer or an editor, because those are the storytellers, and David is really a storyteller… Even though this is a massive superhero production it’s an amazing story.
The conversations we’ve had about the characters are really interesting, and he really gets to the bottom of things. Sometimes you’re worried, if you’re going to do a film like that, that it’s just going to be superhero fun but nothing’s going to go under the surface. But here I feel like we can get both.”
There are many paths to the director’s chair. Kinnaman brings up a great point that is not emphasized enough. Directors with writing backgrounds often have higher ceilings. It is no surprise that Joss Whedon, Jon Favreau, and James Gunn, have all at one time been handed the keys to their respective franchises. They all come from screenwriting and/or comic book backgrounds, which enabled them to deconstruct and rebuild their respective heroes for the big screen in a way that hasn’t been done before.
Kinnaman first made his mark on the show The Killing, before taking on the iconic role of Alex Murphy in last year’s remake of Robocop. Despite there being critics of the film, Kinnaman’s performance was rarely a topic of discussion. It seems that Flagg Jr. is a role well-suited for the burgeoning actor. While Ayer’s Fury had lip-biting action scenes, however most remember the unique performances, that he wrote and pulled out of his cast. It seems that Ayer is preparing to take his filmmaking, and storytelling, to the next level with Suicide Squad.
Suicide Squad shoots up theaters on August 5th, 2016.
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Source: ScreenRant