Peacemaker: James Gunn Explains Why It Was “Very Hard” To Write Robert Patrick’s Character

The first four episodes of Peacemaker are now streaming on HBO Max and the new The Suicide Squad spin-off series is officially the highest-reviewed project in the entire DCEU, beating out Wonder Woman with its 94% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. The show features a star-studded cast led by John Cena in the titular role. The series also features Robert Patrick, who is best known for playing the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The show’s creator, James Gunn, recently spoke with SyFy Wire and explained why writing the role of Auggie, Peaceaker’s father, for Patrick was “very hard.” 

“And it was very hard to write Auggie, because Auggie is such a piece of s*** racist,” Gunn explained. “I didn’t want to pull back on who he was as a racist and to make him this McDonald’s-lite version of what a racist is, which is what you would normally see in television shows. But I didn’t want to serve his bulls***, either. That to me was the most delicate stuff in the show that I really was careful about and tried to do the best that I could to be sensitive and also be authentic at the same time.”

“He’s a horrible guy, which is really easy to play… which is odd,” Patrick added.  

Patrick brought up a moment between Auggie and his son from the latest episode, “The Choas Less Traveled,” in which Peacemaker’s father openly admits that he loved his other son more. That was the first scene they shot for the episode, and Patrick explained that he leaned into his long, real-life history with Cena.

“We had a lot of things working in our favor,” Patricak recalled. “John and I had known each other for about 20 years, so we had a chemistry. And James did such a wonderful job of writing Auggie, so the scene just flowed. We shot the rehearsal and it just flowed from there.” He added, “I know enough that words hurt, so you just have to realize the impact you’re having on somebody because you know how hurtful it is.” 

In addition to Cena and Patrick, Peacemaker also includes The Suicide Squad‘s Jennifer Holland as Emilia Harcourt and Steve Agee as John Economos. The series also stars Danielle Brooks as Leota Adebayo, Freddie Stroma as Vigilante, Christopher Heyerdahl as Captain Locke, Chukwudi Iwuji as Clemson Murn, Lochlyn Munro as Larry Fitzgibbon, and Annie Chang as Sophie Song. 

The first four episodes of Peacemaker are streaming on HBO Max with new episodes dropping on Thursdays.