Peacemaker’s Opening Dance Sequence Features A Surprising Actor Behind the Scenes

One surprising actor plays a big role in Peacemaker‘s opening dance scene. Everyone who has seen the HBO Max show can’t stop talking about the opening clip. That wild dance has a hold on Twitter, with parodies already popping up. But, most fans don’t realize that Alan Tudyk actually played a role in bringing it together. Director James Gunn told the story in an interview for Rolling Stone. Basically, the choreographer Charissa Barton is married to the star. And they got some helpful input from all sides to bring this wild intro to life.

“Everything is completely serious on the one hand, and everything is completely goofy with the other. I think it’s very much like the spirit of the show. It’s a serious show in certain ways, and in others, it’s just completely bananas. So I explained that to Charissa, and then she did the hard lifting,” Gunn detailed. “She got all of the actors coming into the rehearsals to work really hard. One funny thing is that it was only after I hired her that I found out that she was married to my friend [Resident Alien star] Alan Tudyk, and when she was sending me all the little clips of ideas for dance moves out of her kitchen, they were all starring Alan as Peacemaker.”

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He talked more about the opening sequence during Podly: The Peacemaker Podcast. In that discussion, he encouraged fans to stick around and keep watching the opening.

“That was in the script from the beginning. There’s a woman by the name of Charissa Barton who I hired to do the choreography for us…She did a fantastic job,” Gunn said. “I really just wanted something very, very weird. I remember [Leota Adebayo actor] Danielle Brooks coming to me and going, ‘What are we doing? What is this?’ And I’m like, ‘Just look totally serious. You’re not having fun, just be very, very, very, very serious.’ (Laughs) And telling Charissa, ‘We gotta make the dance as ridiculous as it could possibly be while they remain completely serious.’… Charissa really helped me to put that together, she was the one that designed it, and she did an amazing job.” 

“One of the fun things that you’ll see as you watch the episodes of the series is [the opening credits] plays a different role in every episode,” Gunn continued. “I know people are going to be able to skip over it — I hope they don’t — because it plays a different role in every [episode]. It just always tells a different story. You’ll see as our story gets darker, and deeper, and more sad, that the dance itself kind of becomes more sad and more serious and less funny. So it’s interesting to see in that way.”

Did you enjoy this opening number? Let us know down in the comments!