Versatile actor and modern-day Elvira David Dastmalchian wants to play Morbius in the MCU, but he also wouldn't mind taking on a couple of creepy DC villains.
“Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to be a vampire, and I I am a real real vampire, but to play him, for example, in a fictional setting that arose on the pages of a comic book,” Dastmalchian tells GamesRadar+ in an exclusive interview in New York. “It was either like Tomb of Dracula when I was a kid or Morbius, the Living Vampire. And I've always loved Spider-Man, and I've always been a big Marvel person. [fan]”
“What I loved most about Marvel was the heroes, and I just feel like Marvel had some of the coolest anti-heroes. I just thought characters like Blade, Ghost Rider, and Morbius were so cool. I just thought DC had the best villains and Marvel had the best heroes. When I was a kid, I made my own comic books. And I had, you know, like Avengers vs. Legion of Doom or West Coast Avengers. against a bunch of weird DC villains.”
“But I think Morbius, to me, is a really interesting metaphor for addiction and some of the more difficult elements when we struggle with different psychological parts of ourselves,” Dastmalchian explains. “Especially the angry parts, or the self-destructive parts, or the uncontrollable parts of ourselves. So I just thought, I'm not smart enough to be a doctor, but I can play one. go play some wonderful, beautiful, complex character like this.”
We were supposed to meet Morbius in the 1998 Blade movie, as the original ending was supposed to make him the villain for Blade 2. Ultimately, The Living Vampire wouldn't officially hit the big screen until 2022, with Jared Leto portraying the anti-hero in the critically panned film. Sony Marvel movie. As Morbius has not yet been introduced in the MCU, Dastmalchian had already made his MCU debut as the shape-shifting Web in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, a role that the actor said helped him “learn a lot about how to act and transform your body.” However, Web manages to survive at the end of the film… although it's always possible that the actor will play Morbius in a different universe than Earth-616.
“I like characters that I have to put a lot of prosthetics and makeup on, and as a kid I always wanted to be Lon Chaney,” he explains. “And James [Gunn] knew this about me when we filmed The Polka Dot Man. It was really cool. It looked like the Elephant Man with Christmas lights all over his body.”
IN James GunnThe Polka Dot Man from Suicide Squad died rather tragically (after stealing our hearts with his tragic backstory, mind you). Although Suicide Squad is canon to the new DCU, Gunn said that any actor who had already appeared in one of his projects before the DCU could actually continue to play a different character. If Dastmalchian can't play Morbius… is there a villain he'd like to play in the DCU?
“There was always something about Solomon Grundy that attracted me,” the actor says without hesitation. “I think there's a deep, dark sadness to the character and it evokes all the things I love, like Southern Gothic horror, Halloween. I could imagine myself just running around Gotham, you know, on a dark Halloween night. I think Jay Crane is a great damn character, which is the flip side of all the work that excites me when it comes to psychology and psychiatry. And imagine taking that and manipulating it for your own benefit.”
Solomon Grundy (who first appeared in All-American Comics #61 back in 1944) is a reanimated corpse who comes back to life after being thrown into the Slaughterhouse. He's a classic Golden Age villain…who became a popular internet meme because Cartoon Network edit of the Super Friends episode where he angrily demands a new pair of pants.. Dr. Jonathan Crane, also known as the Scarecrow, was played by none other than Cillian Murphy in Batman Begins. If we think in terms of universes, Solomon Grundy seems more suitable for the camper, DCU under David Corenswet's direction, and Scarecrow is more suitable for Elseworlds, which matches Robert Pattinson's Batman and Colin Farrell's Penguin. I'm saying we're asking Gunn to let Dastmalchian do both.
“Sometimes I feel like I could never do another superhero role because I got to do so many fun things in all the worlds, but never say never,” he continues. “You never know what can happen. Think about what Doug Jones did to Abe Sapien. [in 2004's Hellboy]and I’d like to try Abe.”
Dastmalchian has a slew of non-superhero projects in the pipeline, including Netflix's One Piece live-action series as well as Legendary's Street Fighter live-action film. In One Piece, the actor portrays the villain Mister 3, who wields wax that can turn living people into terrifying wax statues. In Street Fighter, Dastmalchian plays none other than M. Bison, the main antagonist of the video game franchise and a megalomaniac at the center of the powerful criminal organization Shadaloo. Not to mention, The Dust Bunny, directed by Bryan Fuller, had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September. Needless to say, the actor (and part-time talk show host) is busy and busy. However, we have a sneaking suspicion that Gunn will add him to the DC cast list somewhere down the line.
Season 2 of One Piece will release on Netflix sometime in 2026, while Street Fighter is scheduled to release on October 16, 2026. For more information check out our listing best netflix shows stream now.
