Only 1 Actor Has Played 7 Different DC Villains (& Now He Wants To Play Morbius In the MCU)

Josh Brolin played Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Cable in Deadpool 2. Michael B. Jordan played the Human Torch in Fantastic Four (2015) and Erik Killmonger in Black Panther. Halle Berry played Storm in Fox’s X-Men movies and Catwoman in, well, Catwoman. When it comes to actors who have played multiple comic book characters in multiple comic book adaptations, the list goes on. But Late Night with the Devil‘s David Dastmalchian has them all beat. Across animation and live-action, Dastmalchian has played 10 different characters in just as many DC or Marvel adaptations. And he would very much like to turn that 10 into an 11.

Specifically, Dastmalchian would like to play Morbius. It may not have worked out so well for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe and Jared Leto, but there is certainly reason to believe Dastmalchian could be the right man for the job.

What Comic Book Characters Has Dastmalchian Played & Why Does He Want Morbius to Be Next?

It’s hard to imagine a bigger movie in which to make your film debut than The Dark Knight, but that was the case for Dastmalchian, who stole his pair of scenes as the smirking, unbalanced Joker thug wearing a nametag reading “Rachel Dawes.” Then, after seven years, he returned to superhero cinema via his role as Kurt in Ant-Man, officially making the jump from DC to Marvel.

Then in 2017 he jumped back to DC with his role as Dwight Pollard on Gotham. But that wasn’t all as, between 2017 and 2021, he again played Kurt in Ant-Man and the Wasp, played Abra Kadabra twice on The Flash, voiced both Calendar Man and Penguin on Batman: The Long Halloween, voiced Kurt on an episode of What If…?, and played the role of Polka-Dot Man in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad.

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More recently he voiced Veb in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Grendon in Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham, and The Flash in Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes and Huntsmen (all 2023). Not to mention, while we didn’t count it in our Dastmalchian superhero movie and TV show appearance count, he played Vic Sage aka The Question in the VR game Batman: Arkham Shadow.

In an interview with The Direct, Dastmalchian went into detail on how he feels his two MCU characters, Veb and Kurt, could return in future installments of the overarching franchise. But perhaps more interestingly was his mentioning of the third character he would like to bring to life in the MCU: Morbius. In his words, “I’ve always wanted to take a crack at Morbius, the living vampire. I would love the opportunity to play Dr. Michael Morbius. Oh, my God. There’s so many great characters in the MCU, and I’ve always been a fan of the horror and the weirder characters.”

Dastmalchian continued on that “horror” and “weirder characters” point, saying he loves “the idea of the Marvel version of Dracula.” As was seen in The Dark Knight and Prisoners, Dastmalchian knows how to be terrifying without saying a word. He can contort his face to strike fear in the hearts of everyone in the room. He would make for an amazing superhero movie vampire, be it Morbius or Dracula.

Furthermore, the failure of the Morbius movie shouldn’t serve as an indication that the character can’t be done right. Dastmalchian, with the right script and no goofy “Morbin’ time” scenes, very much could. Will “the living vampire” get a chance to live on the screen once more? It sounds like Dastmalchian is just waiting on the call.