In James Gunn‘s The Suicide Squad, Daniela Melchior plays Ratcatcher 2, a member of Task Force X who, as the name implies, can control and communicate with rats. With the creatures being such an important part of the character, it would make sense that the actor playing Ratcatcher 2 would need to be able to work with rats comfortably on set and it turns out that interacting with real, live rats was a part of Melchior’s audition, but it sounds like she didn’t have to do much acting. According to Melchior, she soon found herself playing with rats she auditioned with.
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“So, they brought this really big plastic box with the rats already opened and they didn’t tell me anything,” Melchior told ComicBook.com. “They wanted to see what I was going to do. So, I was like, ‘Oh my God. So sweet.’ And I wasn’t pretending, I swear. I picked one up, and then he was crawling on my shoulder. I picked another one. Then I found myself… Me and James [Gunn], we looked like little kids playing with toys. We were so happy to have them. And I guess I passed the test.”
That sort of good rapport with real rats likely made Melchior’s job a bit more fun when working on The Suicide Squad. In the film, her character has one main friend rat named Sebastian, and while according to Gunn there are over 300,000 rats in the film, there were two rat actors — Jaws and Crisp Rat—that played Sebastian in the film.
“We have a couple of good actors, we have a rat by the name of Jaws that we worked with a lot,” Gunn previously told Jimmy Kimmel. “And then a rat by the name of Crisp Rat, who is named after my friend Chris Pratt. They were our two main active rats that played Sebastian the rat in the movie. And then we have about 300,000 other rats.”
As for things that certainly put Melchior at ease while working on The Suicide Squad which is her first English language film, the Portuguese actress also told ComicBook.com that Gunn encouraged her to keep her natural accent.
“I was really nervous, but as soon as James told me ‘Please keep your accent. I love it. And as long as I understand you, we’re fine,’ I was really happy and I felt comfortable,” Melchior said.
The Suicide Squad is set to be released both in theaters and on HBO Max on August 6th.
