The world seems under daily threat with doom and gloom predictions of attack from all fronts. But if you want very bad news, check out the dangers faced by the United States in Suicide Squad.
The apocalyptic threat from the supernaturally powered Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) — like many envisioned by recently-released DC and Marvel comic book movies — offers total destruction of the human race.
To combat the threat, the Suicide Squad — a group of jailed super villains forced to serve devious government agent Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), who has assembled them for this kind of danger — gets activated.
This team — Deadshot (Will Smith), Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Slipknot (Adam Beach), and El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) — is headed by Waller’s Special Forces commander Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman), who ensures subservience by threat of an explosive device embedded in them.
Katana (Karen Fukuhara) aids Flag in battling this threat and controlling an unhappy Squad who are expendable defenders. Also in the mix is Batman’s nemesis The Joker (Jared Leto), here a ganglord who schemes to free his lover Quinn. Initially, the Enchantress was a Squad member, until she wrested herself away from Waller’s control and set out to wreck havoc.
Although the film, in common with most blockbusters this summer, has received decidedly mixed reviews, the self-assured, irreverent Day-Glo campaign sets this movie apart from much of DC’s stable and indeed from much of the comic cinematic fray. Director/writer David Ayer’s bad guy ensemble offers an eye-popping vision of a filmmaker eager to rage and set loose the demons.
In accordance with that vision, Warner Brothers transformed a former postal garage into a huge warehouse/bunker for the film’s junket at Manhattan’s Beacon Theatre.
Turns out the demons were off-camera too. Take actress-model Cara Delevingne’s preparation for the Enchantress. Her mother was a heroin addict, and in 2013 she was pictured dropping what appeared to be a bag of cocaine in clear view of the paparazzi.
Addiction was not an impediment to Cara developing the role of the darkly mystical Enchantress. Instead it was integral. “For me I looked into things about addiction,” she says. “The feeling that you never get enough and needing something. It was trying to find a demon inside myself. And exercise. Trying to make that as real as possible and understand how someone could be that evil and just make it real.”
Cara Delevingne and Karen Fukuhara at the Suicide Squad junket
Will Smith acted as the perspicacious host making sure the assembled squad was on playful, and at times insidious, form.
“David Ayer has an interesting process,” he said making clear this wasn’t his typical Wild Wild West blockbuster experience, “much more like therapy than character creation [where we] talk about our lives, trials, tribulations and then at the most opportune moment he would betray us with manipulation, domination, torture!”
This evidently suited Jared Leto, who has never been one to play down his dark side. “It’s kinda like giving birth out of your prick hole, ” he observed. “For me, it was the role of a lifetime. I had so much fun playing the Joker, I think I could play the Joker a few more times, then retire.”
Ayer said about his working method: “I need these people to feel like they’re best friends on camera and when you’re with your best friend you share secrets. I wanted them to have that energy and the fastest way to do that was to have them beat the hell out of each other and share their secrets.”
“That’s also how you start a cult,” observed Adam Beach. “We’d show up for training, beating each other up, and David would show up…he’d train with us, beat us up. There was time when they were sparring, training with Karen and she got it in the nose.”
Confirmed Karen Fukuhara: “Right after he punched me in the face he said, “You gotta block your face, Karen.”
Fifteen years after playing Muhammad Ali, Will Smith was also battered. “When you’re 47, no injuries are mild,” he said. “I tore my calf a couple weeks in. What’s terrible is you do it doing nothing. We’re sparring, I threw a punch and took a step back, and my calf popped…the doctor said I was going to be down six weeks. Movie like this can click off significant amounts of money. .. I wasn’t going to pay for it but It was really scary to be in that position. I was like, ‘Oh my God, Suicide Squad! I have this opportunity and may not be able to do it.”
“Will soldiered on, ” said Ayer, “then three seconds later, Joel blew out his calf.” Said hot Swede Joel Kinnaman, “I was just trying to show sympathy. ”
Some critics have said Margot Robbie, playing Harley Quinn, steals the movie. She had to do so in high heels. “That was tricky,” she said. “I also had less ways to hide padding and stuff for stunts so that made it more painful.I thought I broke a rib at one point but actually I tore the muscles off the rib. It was fine.”
The Aussie Robbie also landed awkwardly off a helicopter: “That hurt so much! I fell from this high up straight onto my knees on the tarmac. I couldn’t cry in front of all these people I was like, “I’m good!'”
But the real violence, according to Robbie, was of the emotional kind: “The hardest part wasn’t the physical side, actually. The emotional stuff was definitely more difficult. Exposing my most vulnerable sides in front of a room full of strangers at that point was incredibly hard.”
“Trying to figure out why Harley was so devoted to Joker, and why she’s so devoted to this guy that tries to kill her occasionally. That was difficult to get my head around.”
Madness accompanied the moves and mayhem. “It was clear he wanted to something unique, something special, something that we were all really proud of,” said Kinnaman of director Ayer. ” I could get the sense from him that he was willing to go to all lengths to get that…I was surprised how much freedom he gave to everybody to go completely fucking crazy. ”
“He took it very seriously,” Smith said of Ayer’s approach to Suicide Squad. “He watched videos on crocodiles and cannibalism.”
One of the film’s great strengths is that the women are just as twisted and powerful as the men. “We did a lot of research,” noted Robbie, “and one thing I found helpful for filling in the gaps that the comics couldn’t fill was that I watched a couple TED talks on schizophrenia.
“That really helped because the women doing those talks were so intelligent, and Harley needed to be intelligent but also psychotic. I also got recommended to read a play called Fool for Love [by Sam Shepard] about a really dysfunctional relationship that really helped me unlock her feelings for the Joker.”
Viola Davis had another offbeat solution for developing her character. “Joel [Kinnaman] gave me a book called Confessions of a Sociopath and I read that book extensively. One of the things I found out is that a lot of CEOs of companies are sociopaths. People that have no guilt and if they cry it’s only because they feel like they’re losing control.”
“I also had to tap into Viola at eight, I couldn’t think as Viola at 51. But Viola at eight could beat somebody’s ass. I was always angry. People were always teasing me, I was bullied.”
Of course Kinnaman added, “Every day me and Viola had on set, David would have her stand behind the camera and just yell mean things at me. She’d be like ‘Joel! Joel! You little bitch!’ I’m like, ‘OK, good morning.'”
Another marker for the film is that this is one of the most diverse casts seen in a long time. Jay Hernandez plays that rare role, a Latino superhero. Then there are the sheer number of kickass women. “What happens in film a lot is the male voice, and by voice I mean the depth of performance and arc of the character is incredibly developed and often women are underdeveloped,” said Ayer. “In this case I wanted women that had voices and power.”
Perhaps Cara Delevingne wound up having the most power of all. “It’s funny,” she said. “I didn’t do any fighting until the end.” Observing everyone else doing battle, Cara concluded, “was fun to watch.” No wonder she has 31 million followers on Instagram.
