Viola Davis Says She Had Heart Palpitations During Suicide Squad

Aside from playing a serial killer on Law & Order that killed a family with a baseball bat, Viola Davis has mostly played “nice” characters, but more recently, Davis has entered a “not being nice phase” in her acting career. We’ll see her dark side on full display when Suicide Squad is released in August. The Emmy-winner and two-time Oscar nominee is playing Amanda Waller, the hard-as-nails U.S. intelligence officer that assembled and is in charge of the squad of villains.

E! caught up with Davis and asked her how crazy filming got? “Just put it this way, it got so crazy that there were times during filming that I had heart palpitations,” Davis shared. “Not only heart palpitations, but at one point I said, ‘Did I suffer from hearing loss? Why is my left ear still pounding?’”

Davis also made sure to praise the entire cast. “Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, I mean everyone, every single person in it gets to be completely insane–because all the characters are insane,” she said. “They’re bad guys. We’re all bad guys. Amanda Waller is … a bad guy, bad girl. We’re not nice.”

Davis then discussed the bullets Jared Leto gifted her and how she got truly meet Leto, not The Joker, when they ran into each other at an awards show.

It feels good to be bad… Assemble a team of the world’s most dangerous, incarcerated Super Villains, provide them with the most powerful arsenal at the government’s disposal, and send them off on a mission to defeat an enigmatic, insuperable entity.U.S. intelligence officer Amanda Waller has determined only a secretly convened group of disparate, despicable individuals with next to nothing to lose will do.However, once they realize they weren’t picked to succeed but chosen for their patent culpability when they inevitably fail, will the Suicide Squad resolve to die trying, or decide it’s every man for himself?

Written and directed by Ayer based on the characters from DC Comics, the film also stars Jai Courtney (“Insurgent”), Jay Hernandez (“Takers”), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (“Thor: The Dark World”), Ike Barinholtz (“Neighbors”), Scott Eastwood (“Fury”), Cara Delevingne (“Paper Towns”), Adam Beach (“Cowboys & Aliens”), and Karen Fukuhara in her feature film debut. It is produced by Charles Roven and Richard Suckle, with Zack Snyder, Deborah Snyder, Colin Wilson and Geoff Johns serving as executive producers.

Suicide Squad opens worldwide in 3D, and in 2D, and in select IMAX 3D theaters beginning August 5, 2016.