Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photo: Warner Bros.
David Dastmalchian’s career was stuck. He’d been plucked “out of theatrical obscurity,” as he calls it, after being cast as one of the Joker’s loyal thugs in The Dark Knight, the mega-successful second film in director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. But after that film wrapped, Dastmalchian’s film and TV opportunities in Chicago — where he was an experienced stage actor — remained what they’d usually been: tied to a xenophobic understanding of his last name.
“It was mostly limited to, I don’t know how to describe it better than, quote-unquote, ethnic characters,’” says Dastmalchian, whose father was Iranian American. “It was like, a terrorist on 24 or a cab driver who’s supposed to have a funny accent. These are real descriptions. They used to put it in the fucking script.”
Then he got a phone call out of the blue about a last-minute audition for a “hermit” character in a film called Prisoners. “It felt like something that just made sense to me,” Dastmalchian says of the role of Bob Taylor, a mysterious man who appears on the fringes of a dual-child-abduction case in Denis Villeneuve’s 2013 thriller. At first, Bob seems as nefarious and twitchy as Dastmalchian’s Dark Knight lackey, especially when he runs away from the detective in charge of the case, Jake Gyllenhaal’s Loki. But Aaron Guzikowski’s script quickly transforms Bob into a figure of vulnerability and fear, a switch that occurs thanks to Dastmalchian’s raw performance of a man unable to shake off the trauma of his lost childhood. One of the film’s big reveals is that Bob was abducted by the same people who took the girls Loki is trying to find, and in Dastmalchian’s hands, Bob’s suicide is the film’s greatest tragedy.
In the decade since, Dastmalchian’s career has exploded as he’s become nearly omnipresent in the horror and superhero genres. He’s worked with Nolan again on Oppenheimer and Villeneuve again on Blade Runner 2049 and Dune. He’s played fan-favorite characters in various blockbuster franchises and starred in the horror film Late Night With the Devil. But Prisoners — like The Dark Knight — still holds a singular place in the actor’s consideration of his own career. “I feel like I was able to help fulfill a small part of the vision of a director who I think has one of the most important voices in cinema and who is also an important human in my life,” Dastmalchian says. “What a fucking wild maze that was.”
Where were you in your career before Prisoners? You had your breakout performance in 2008’s The Dark Knight. What kind of roles were you getting offered at this time, and what were you looking for?
2010, 2011, and 2012 in Los Angeles were very hard. I thought having been a part of this big blockbuster movie was going to ensure me good representation and opportunities, but that wasn’t the case. I was really struggling to try and get into rooms. I spent every night I could at different actors’ workshops trying to meet people, casting directors, and network. I meet this guy who’s an up-and-coming no-title assistant named Rich Delia, and Rich said to me after I did my scene, “You are fucking good, and I’m gonna remember you and bring you in.” The same thing happened with Krista Husar, who ended up getting me on to Twin Peaks: The Return with David Lynch.
I was trying so hard to find my way in Hollywood and I went back to what I’d learned early on, which was that telling my own stories was the way to do things. I started putting together a film I wrote with several friends called Animals, and I dedicated my life to it. I was spending every moment trying to raise the money. I got a direct offer to be in a film that was going to pay maybe $20,000. I met the director, and he was really lovely and shared his script with me. I read it, and I immediately knew it was not the right role for me. My wife Eve — my girlfriend at the time — knowing how broke we were and that it was almost Christmas, was like, “Listen to your heart. You always listen to your heart. This is the way that you’re gonna make it in this world.” I reached out to my friend Peter Robb-King, who is a legendary makeup artist I met on The Dark Knight and who served as a mentor for many years when I would struggle like this. He would say, “Michael Caine says, ‘Take work when there’s work,’ but what’s in your heart?” I ended up not taking that film, and [I was] sitting there before the holiday break going, I’m out of money. It’s almost the holidays. I can’t even afford presents for people. I am a grown man. What am I doing?
I get a call for a last-minute audition. I get the copy, and there’s lines, and this character immediately speaks to me. He’s described as a burly hermit of a man with a big beard, and he’s greasy and overweight, but I’m reading the words and I’m like, No, no, no, no. I don’t think that’s what he is. This guy is beige wallpaper. He’s somebody that blends in wherever he needs to because he’s so scared, and he needs to step back wherever he is so no one pays attention to him. I put on beige pants and a little sweater vest, and I combed my hair. I’m so nervous. It’s one of the handful of times I’ve been able to audition for a Hollywood movie, and at this point, I don’t know who’s in it. I don’t know anything. Maybe I had two hours to prepare this. But I get there and I go in, and there’s Rich, who’s the assistant at that office now. And he’s like, “I told you I’d get you in.” I auditioned, I walked away, and I enjoyed my holidays. The New Year came, and I was gung ho because we’re gonna go make my movie Animals. And I got a call, and it was my agent saying, “They want you to go to Atlanta. You’ve got the part. Denis Villeneuve has cast you in this movie.” It’s gonna star Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal and Viola fucking Davis and Melissa fucking Leo and Terrence fucking Howard and all these people. Paul goddamn Dano. Holy shit. Are you kidding me? Roger fucking Deakins is gonna film this movie! Eve and I had fallen deeply in love with a film called Incendies by Denis. And the truth of the matter is, if I had taken that other part, which was filming in another state, I would have been on that plane the next day. I would never have had that audition for Denis’s film. When I met him in person, the first thing he said was, “I want to hear about Chris Nolan. How was working with him on The Dark Knight?” [Laughs] Denis has changed my life — as a friend, as an artist, as an inspiration. He went on to give me priceless, incomparable notes on Animals. He guided me on set and as an actor in a way that really changed the way I feel about myself as a performer.
Do you know of anyone else who was up for the role?
I do know that Denis had to fight for me. One of my first days of filming was the moment where detective Loki confronts Bob Taylor at the door of his home. The playfulness, the magic, the tension, and the fear that I felt Denis was able to manifest on set that day was so special. And I remember standing by one of the monitors, and one of the producers made a joke. He said, “I owe Denis dinner. He really fought for you, and we didn’t, and he just proved himself right. You were meant to play this role.” It was a great compliment because he was basically admitting that he didn’t want me, and I had done well. Denis didn’t know me at all. He knew that I was a guy who was in a Chris Nolan film. He thought that was really cool, and he wanted to talk about that. But whatever it was he saw — it makes me emotional thinking about it, because I feel like if that hadn’t happened, I know that I wouldn’t be sitting here.
There is a real duality to this performance that I think is incredibly effective, of how odd and ominous Bob feels at first, and how wounded he’s revealed to be. Did you build more of a backstory for him than what was provided in the script?
What you learn about Bob from the narrative is that he is the only surviving victim. I was kind of isolated, staying at this hotel in Stone Mountain, Georgia, where I didn’t have a car. There really wasn’t anything around there. I would go for long walks in the woods, which can be pretty haunting. I would let my imagination run wild about feeling lost on these trails, and I would go back to my hotel room and I would watch documentaries about the 1970s and 1980s, the panic around child snatchers and real disappearances. All that found its way into my workbook for the script, which I had filled with as many old mazes as I could find. I just took crayons and drew mazes all day, and thought about being lost in a space and not knowing your way out, and trying to, and feeling helpless because you don’t have the tools. You have no compass, you have no flashlight, you have no rope. But you’re in there, and you want to help other people get out of there because you know that there’s others younger than you, new victims, who were lost in there. Denis was really wonderful at sending me digital imagery through email, and sometimes I’d print them and have them in my book — very impressionistic images of different pieces of art photography that evoked a sense of isolation, dread, lostness, that really spoke to me when I was prepping for Bob. I had probably a few weeks to prepare the role officially. I was on set for maybe five days total.
Most of your scenes are with Jake. Did you two connect beforehand?
We didn’t speak much. We would step into the ring and just dance, and the way that Denis led us to those moments was wonderful. The meeting at the door — Denis made me feel like he had confidence in whatever I was going to be bringing to the scene. And obviously he and Jake, because they’ve created so much together, they were deep into their process together. The purpose of Bob Taylor in the story is obviously to convey some important information to our audience, but I believe he is really there to help slingshot Loki much further, faster, into a sense of desperation on the journey — that he’s falling into his own maze. So for me, it was all about both playing off of what Jake was doing in those moments, but also giving back something that was going to perplex and bewilder him, even though the character’s really trying to help and is so scared.
We meet Bob at the vigil for the missing Anna and Joy. Bob is terrified of Loki and runs from him through the neighborhood. I’m curious about how that came together, what you wanted to convey in that first appearance and what went into filming the chase.
Going out in public is terrifying for Bob. Trying to hide in the crowd is terrifying for Bob. And there’s this really easy, boring way that that scene could have happened; it never would have, under Denis’s guidance. But a grown man caressing a teddy bear, in many different kinds of films, could be like, This is the moment we’re gonna telegraph what a weird and “creepy” guy this is. That’s not what we were doing. It’s a connection to the missing children, but also the child that has never left that basement, who Bob still is inside. We had a wonderful stuntman, Eric Mainade, who I’ve worked with since, who doubled for me as Bob. He jumped out of a tree and landed on Jake, and then me and Jake were wrestling. I was really scared because at one point, I thought I had kneed him, but he was fine. And it was fun: I ran down a hill and jumped over a fence and did things athletically that I didn’t know I was capable of, but sometimes adrenaline, it’s just a magical thing.
Can you tell me more about your choices during the doorway scene? Your voice breaks; you have to make this awkward Brooks Brothers joke.
There’s so many lessons I learned onstage. One of the most important ones is you can’t change the lines of dialogue that you’re given. You have to make them work, and if you can’t make them work, then you have to lean upon your director or your scene partners to help you make them work. And there’s a line in that scene, “I can’t afford to shop at Brooks Brothers,” which just terrified me. I couldn’t understand where it was coming from. I was trying to justify it as, I’m gonna make a calming joke to try and maybe break the tension that I’m feeling. But there’s something that almost comes across as a little snarky, as if I’m like, Maybe you can’t [afford to], either. I tried to do what I had to when I was performing, say, Tennessee Williams and there was a line I hated saying. I took a breath, let the words come out, and trusted that forces greater than I knew what needed to happen. And the words came out of my mouth, and I laughed a genuine, sincere David laugh. I don’t know how much of that is Bob, and how much is just David being like, Well, I did it, I said it. It was great because it grounded me into that moment of vulnerability for a second.
And I ask this from a place of personal fear: Did you have to do anything with the snakes in Bob’s house?
I don’t mind snakes. I get nervous around them; anybody naturally would. But it was a colder day, and because they’re cold-blooded animals, they were not as reactive. I was lying face down when Loki opens the crate with the snakes, and a couple slithered by, but I didn’t mind.
Bob’s last scene is his interrogation at the police station and his death by suicide. You’re chuckling to yourself, you’re humming, you’re rocking back and forth. How much of that was you being given the freedom to do that, and how much was scripted and blocked?
Denis gave me complete freedom. I liked the thought of humming “Singing in the Rain” to myself because it was a song that Bob’s mother used to sing to him when he was little, and it’s a comfort song. Being locked in a room is his nightmare, he is in the pit in his mind, and yet he’s still trying to help solve the riddle of the maze. That blend of self-soothing behaviors with being completely terrified, all of that is gold for you as an actor in exploring a scene like that. And because of my background in the theater, I am a total fiend for the technical aspects of performance. I’m not a Method actor, and I’m definitely not a Let’s show up and just see what happens kind of actor. I love the orchestration and choreography of trying to manufacture reality. I collaborated with Amber Crowe, who was my personal makeup artist under Donald Mowat, who was the department head and has continued to department-head all of Denis’s films. Denis and Roger really wanted to try and play the scene through as clumsily and naturally as possible, and Donald had his brilliant idea. I’m handcuffed. There is a little pad to protect me when Jake slams my head on the table. Into the palm of my hands, Donald has put a small sponge soaked in fake blood. I’m gonna cry and hum, and Jake and I work through, he’s gonna grab me and say his lines, and on a certain cue he’s gonna give me, he’s gonna now hit my head on the table. I have to guide my head to the pad, then I have to take the sponge and smoosh it against my nose, and then drop the sponge so the camera can’t see it. Blood is now pouring down my face. I’m gonna grab this gun and then, between the camera and the visual effects, they needed me to land in a very specific place in front of the two-way mirrors so that when they did the headshot, they had me lined up perfectly for what they would need as far as light, camera, and perspective. First AD Donald Sparks is there, trying to make sure all these things happen and no one’s gonna get hurt. And we did it, and it felt incredible.
I am a survivor of three suicide attempts. I’m 23 years into a journey of both sobriety and mental health that is incredible, and which I’m insanely grateful for every day. [Pauses] But putting a gun in my mouth was triggering in a way I didn’t expect. As a technical actor, I am not the kind of actor who just believes that the given circumstances are actually occurring. I don’t actually believe I’m killing someone when I’m killing them in a scene. But the problem I’ve learned is that my body doesn’t know the difference. I had a moment where I did leave my present state of consciousness — maybe 30 seconds. I was a little lost, and when I opened my eyes, Jake was there with a hand on my shoulder and chest, comforting me. Denis gave me a big hug, and I was able to snap back into the work. But that was a tricky one, and I’m really proud of what I was able to contribute thanks to Denis and Donald and Jake and Roger and everybody else. That’s the magic to me.
Thank you for sharing that with me. In that scene, there’s a moment where Bob clearly has something to say, but he just can’t get it out. It’s a glimpse into Bob wanting to help because of what happened to him, but also being unable to because of what happened to him.
Isn’t that true for all of us? It’s something we can all relate to. I need to express this to my partner, my parent, myself, my co-worker, my friend, and I just don’t know how. I’m so scared, I’m so lonely, I’m so sad, I’m so unsure. It’s something we all know and feel in our bones — too often.
Do people recognize you from Prisoners? And how do you think appearing in that film has changed your career?
I couldn’t even go to see Prisoners until it had been in theaters for two weeks because we were in Chicago making Animals; we were shooting six days a week and working around the clock and had no money. One night my wife organized a group of us to go to the theater and see it. We watched Prisoners, and wow, it knocked me over. I went in the bathroom to splash my face, and I was looking in the mirror, and there was a guy, a complete stranger, who was using the sink next to me. He looked in the mirror and he saw me, and he goes like [mimics gasping and leaning backward in recognition], and I just smiled.
A number of very important directors in my life have said that seeing me in Prisoners was one of the reasons why they wanted to work with me. When it came out, I was already becoming friends with James Gunn, but I’ll never forget when he sent me a message and told me that he thought I did a really excellent job. That’s one that has always stood out to me. It’s a wide range of things now that people may recognize me from — The Dark Knight, Prisoners, the Ant-Man films, The Suicide Squad. One day at a mall in the Valley, I was trying to win a Squishmallow in the shape of a coffin at this video-game arcade. My daughter asked for it for Christmas. I was like, “Can I just buy the thing?” They’re like, “We can’t sell it to you. You have to pay with tickets.” I was at the claw machine trying to win ticket bundles and turned to these two teenagers who were obviously really good at all this shit, I was like, “Can you please help me?” And they were like, “My God. Are you the dude from Prisoners? We just watched that, we love that movie!” I probably spent $50 in tokens trying to win a $5 Squishmallow. But these teenagers helped me, and then I said, “I’ll take a picture with you,” so we did.