The Suicide Squad: James Gunn Shows Off “Complexities” of the Polka-Dot Man Costume

Happy Birthday, David Dastmalchian! The actor known for playing Kurt in the Ant-Man movies, Abra Kadabra on The Flash, and appearing in other big projects such as The Dark Knight, Blade Runner 2049, and Twin Peaks: The Return turned 44 on July 21st. Soon, Dastmalchian will likely be known best for playing Polka-Dot Man in the highly-anticipated The Suicide Squad. In fact, director James Gunn took to Instagram today to wish Dastmalchian a Happy Birthday, and share a closer look at the details of his costume.

“Happy Birthday to my great friend, the Polka-Dot Man himself, @dastmalchian. I’m so pleased to see all the early critics gushing over his performance – a beautiful, sad outsider full of heart. Here he is on the set of #TheSuicideSquad with his stunt double @lonehart_stunts. For an extra treat zoom in on this photo to see the complexities of the Polka-Dot Man uniform designed by Judianna Makovsky,” Gunn wrote. “💙🙏🏼💙 So much Love and Gratitude for you, my friend! Thank you!.” Dastmalchian replied. You can check out the photo below:

Dastmalchian spoke with ComicBook.com and a group of other journalists on the set of The Suicide Squad, and he opened up about how he relates to the character, how his powers will come to be an asset for Task Force X, and how he was shocked he didn’t remember Polka-Dot Man from the comics.

“I was embarrassed, to be honest, because the name sparked a bit of a memory,” Dastmalchian said. “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.”

“Polka-Dot Man is great,” Gunn recently told Total Film. “I went and looked online, ‘Who’s the dumbest DC character of all time?’ and it was Polka-Dot Man. We’ve turned that character who’s a sad, pathetic character into a character who’s depressed because people think he’s stupid. He has a very tragic story that you learn about throughout the film – to be able to add depth to characters who are thought of as the silliest is a fun thing for me to do.”

The Suicide Squad releases in theaters and on HBO Max on August 6.