The Suicide Squad: James Gunn Calls Daniela Melchior’s Ratcatcher 2 “the Heart of the Film”

The Suicide Squad was finally released today and everyone seems to have a different favorite character ranging from Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn to David Dastmalchian’s Polka-Dot Man, and everyone in-between. One character who has unexpectedly captured audience’s hearts is Ratcatcher 2/Cleo Cazo, the role played by Daniela Melchior. In a squad filled with villains and murderers, Cleo is the one character who didn’t land in Belle Reve for some heinous crime. The Los Angeles Times recently did a profile on Melchior, and it featured director James Gunn calling her character the heart of the film.

“She’s the heart of the film in so many ways,” Gunn shared. “She’s not a killer. She’s not a murderer. She’s in prison for doing something stupid with rats, that probably any of us would do, if we had a rat and a [special] wand and were incredibly poor.”

Melchior expressed similar sentiments about her character, adding, “She’s not a supervillain yet because she never killed anyone … This was a good opportunity to see her first mission and it’s a good starting point. Maybe in other things — if there are any other things — we can see her learning those skills. Learning how to kill someone if she has to, learning how to fight or learning how to deal with her daddy issues in a better way.”

During the interview, Gunn also praised Melchior’s performance and talked about her real-life goodness.

“She had a naturalism about the way she acted this,” says Gunn. “Everything was real. Everything was present and I believed her. And for my stuff, it’s really important, because the characters are so outrageous, that they’re also very present. If you’re doing outrageous material in a cartoony manner, that doesn’t work. It’s got to be you’re doing outrageous material in a way that we believe you’re actually a real human being saying something.”

“She’s just a really sweet person,” Gunn added. “She’s just a really good human being. And I could see that in her and I said, ‘Daniela, I want you to promise me one thing. … Just promise me that you’ll remain a good person.’ There’s a lot of people that come into this industry seeming like good people and then changing. It’s important that good people keep working in this industry.”

The Suicide Squad‘s cast also includes Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Idris Elba as Bloodsport, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flagg, David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Steve Agee as John Economos and King Shark (on-set reference), Sylvester Stallone as the voice of King Shark, John Cena as Peacemaker, Michael Rooker as Savant, Flula Borg as Javelin, Peter Capaldi as Thinker, Nathan Fillion as TDK, Mayling Ng as Mongal, Pete Davidson as Blackguard, Sean Gunn as Weasel, Joaquin Cosio as General Mateo Suarez, Juan Diego Botto as Luna, Storm Reid as Tyla, Alice Braga as Sol Soria, Jennifer Holland as Emilia Harcourt, and Taika Waititi.

The Suicide Squad is now playing in theatres and is available to watch on HBO Max.