James Gunn, Margot Robbie and John Cena talk ‘The Suicide Squad’
We’re just under two weeks away from the arrival of one of 2021’s biggest blockbuster cinema events, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, a larger than life supervillains on a mission film that is sure to bring plenty of crazy back to the big screen.
The press circuit for The Suicide Squad is now rolling and on a very special episode of Jimmy Kimmel, special guest host Anthony Anderson sat down with director James Gunn and stars Margot Robbie and John Cena, who was in full Peacemaker regalia, to discuss the film, rats, the contents of Margot Robbie’s past bedroom and just what audiences can expect from this epic film.
Watch the full interview below:
Clocking in at just over 18 minutes in length the segment gave audiences a terrific look inside The Suicide Squad and what they can expect from it. When asked about why he chose to direct The Suicide Squad Gunn said his desire was to create “the ultimate comic book movie, based on The Suicide Squad, one of my favourite comic books of all time by John Ostrander about a group of really crappy supervillains, some of the worst supervillains in the world, sorry John, who are being used as fodder by the US Government in Black Ops missions, putting them out on suicide missions where most of them die. And this group of Suicide Squad members goes to Corto Maltese, a fictional island off the coast of Argentina to stop an insurrection.”
The conversation quickly moved onto John Cena’s in-character appearance as Peacemaker, a core member of The Suicide Squad who is driven to achieve peace at all costs….no matter how many men, women or children he has to kill. Having just completed work on his new Peacemaker spin-off show Cena was clearly having a ball in character and in costume, and his appearance also lent to a very amusing story on Margot Robbie’s behalf about a certain John Cena life-size cardboard cutout that used to be a fixture in a former boyfriends room…and laughter did indeed ensue.
In the segment, Gunn also touched on his love of rats and the character of Rat-Catcher 2 played by Daniela Melchior, and that his film had two starring rats as Rat-Catcher’s pet rat Sebastian, Jaws and Chris pRat, along with hundreds of thousands of CGI rats. Gunn definitely has an enthusiasm for rats and his love for these creatures led to Margot Robbie’s own adventures with RatRat, a pet she received from Mr J on the first Suicide Squad film, and it was very fun to hear about RatRat’s very colourful life.
Audiences were also given two unique clips from the film, one of a bold rescue attempt by the Squad, and another where the Squad are trying to get into disguise, and well the ever-lovable King Shark sadly misses out. Gunn talked a lot about re-teaming to work with childhood hero and Hollywood legend Sylvester Stallone again, and it was fun to hear how they first started working together, alongside some fun on set stories, and Gunn is promising some very big moments from King Shark in the new film. Alongside these two clips, a third clip has also been released which showcases Nathan Fillion’s TBK in action….and it’s straight-up classic Gunn!
The Suicide Squad is set to be one hell of a crazy fun ride when it arrives in cinemas on August 5.
