David Dastmalchian is one of many actors currently starring in James Gunn‘s The Suicide Squad, and his character, Polka-Dot Man/Abner Krill has already become a fan favorite. “We’ve turned that character who’s a sad, pathetic character into a character who’s depressed because people think he’s stupid,” Gunn previously explained of Polka-Dot Man. Last week, DC fans were freaking out over photos of Dastmalchian’s cat, Bubblegum, who he adopted while filming The Suicide Squad. During a recent chat with Vulture, Dastmalchian shared the story of his new furry friend.
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“Bubblegum. My baby. I miss her so f*cking bad, dude. She’s back in L.A. because I just didn’t know what the living circumstances were going to be like in Malta as far as, would the housing be cool with a cat? And she’s already traveled from Panama to the U.S. and she didn’t seem to love intercontinental travel. So I think keeping her back home is fine, but I do miss her. She’s such a special cat,” Dastmalchian shared. “I’ve had cats for years. I lost my cat Amelie in 2018. I had her since 2002, right when I got clean; she was the cat that I got sober with. She fit in my shirt pocket when I first got her. Then she passed away, and we were on the lookout for a new cat. I kept having to travel for work, and I kept putting off, I think, the commitment to getting as close as I do get to pets. We would go to the shelter and then I’d get nervous and back out, like, ‘Guys I can’t do it.’”
He continued, “And I was in Panama and this incredible, beautiful cat kept coming up to the set, wanting to be petted and scratched. She was really hungry and really beat up. And I fell in love and now she’s mine. Well, she’s not mine, I’m hers. And when my mom died, the cat knew when to come sit in my lap and purr, and she knew when I needed to be left alone. My kids are so insanely rambunctious, and I love them to death, but my God, they had so much energy to expel during lockdown. And the cat was so patient with them, and would play chase with them. And she comes when you call her. It was amazing … She’s never a ‘F*ck you’ cat. I loved Amelie, but she was the most ‘F*ck you’ cat I ever had. Anybody came near her, she was like, ‘Don’t even think about it.’ But not Bubblegum. Her full name is Abner Bubblegum Polka-Dot Cat, but we just call her Bubblegum.”
You can check out a photo of Dastmalchian and Bubblegum below:
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“I was embarrassed, to be honest, because the name sparked a bit of a memory,” Dastmalchian previously said of Polka-Dot Man. “Abner is a really wonderful character… I feel like there’s some thread between myself and this character in that parts of my life, I think, that I never appreciated or thought anything about what I had to offer maybe was either cool or powerful or interesting, and then certain circumstances arose in my life, and probably my wife and my friends who’ve made me feel like that. There’s this kindredness between me and Abner in that in that sense.”
The Suicide Squad is now playing in theatres and is available to watch on HBO Max.
