10 Excellently Weird Sci-Fi and Horror David Dastmalchian Performances

It’s not every actor that can say they made their big-screen debut in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, playing one of the Joker’s freaky henchmen, but David Dastmalchian is not every actor. He’s been appearing in movies and TV for years, though his big leading-man breakout came fairly recently, in 2023’s Late Night With the Devil.

With that, he went from being “that guy” to a face with a name everyone recognizes. Along the way he’s done some interesting side gigs, including writing comics and hosting a YouTube series (Grave Conversations) in which he and his celebrity guests chat while reclining in coffins. His earlier work has been interesting too, with credits in Twin Peaks: The Return, the reboot of MacGyver (as the recurring baddie), Netflix horror hit Bird Box, and Hulu true crime tale The Boston Strangler (as the title character, or one of them at least).

Apparently not being fond of sleep or vacations, Dastmalchian has more coming very soon, including roles in Mike Flanagan’s Life of Chuck, Bryan Fuller’s feature directorial debut Dust Bunny, season two of One Piece, and Dexter: Resurrection, to name a few.

Currently, though, he’s co-starring on one of our new favorite TV shows: Murderbot. And that’s what’s inspired this list of Dastmalchian’s most excellently weird sci-fi and horror roles so far.

1. Murderbot

On the current Apple TV+ sci-fi show, Dastmalchian plays Gurathin, the “augmented human” member of the survey team Murderbot is assigned to protect. Though he has more in common with the resident robot than anyone else, Gurathin is still very suspicious of the AI in their midst, to the point of being antagonistic—long before he realizes, as the audience learns early on, that Murderbot has hacked its programming and doesn’t actually have to obey any orders. Gurathin’s a complicated guy, something the show explores more in later episodes, and Dastmalchian infuses him with a blend of skepticism and vulnerability that feels appropriately awkward for the character.

2-3. Early DC TV: The Flash and Gotham

While Dastmalchian’s collaborations with James Gunn pre-date Gunn’s ascension to the top job at DC Studios—and we’ll get to those!—so too does his association with DC Comics characters. In 2017, he had a two-episode run as Dwight Pollard (a morgue worker who’s secretly a cultist trying to revive the show’s proto-Joker character) on Gotham; and he popped up twice on The Flash playing supervillain Abra Kadabra.

4. The Suicide Squad

In a misfit team-up that also included King Shark, we’re still leaning toward Dastmalchian’s meta-human, pustule-popping Polka-Dot Man as the most ridiculous character in James Gunn’s 2021 DC Studios film. There’s some poignancy that goes with that, yet, but ridiculous all the same. In 2016, Dastmalchian also had a small role amid the office-building carnage in the Gunn-scripted action-horror tale The Belko Experiment.

5. Ant-Man and Its Sequels

Not one to just stick with DC Studios, Dastmalchian also popped up in all three of Marvel’s Ant-Man movies, playing Scott Lang’s Russian computer hacker buddy Kurt in the first two. The character’s accent and distinctively tacky style of dressing (not to mention hairstyling) made him stand out among the ensemble cast. The fan favorite even popped up on Marvel’s animated alt-reality series, What If…?, though seeing as how it was the “What If… Zombies?!” episode, he ended up eventually succumbing to an undead Wanda Maximoff.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania brought back Dastmalchian as a slimy Quantum Realm dweller named Veb, because you can’t spell “Ant-Man” without “Dastmalchian.” Metaphorically speaking.

6. Denis Villeneuve times three

In Prisoners, he’s a creepy as hell, maze-obsessed suspected child kidnapper who shoots himself before cops can thoroughly vet all the repulsive and seemingly irrefutable evidence tying him to the crimes. In Blade Runner 2049, he’s the crime lab tech who confirms the mysterious buried skeleton is a woman who gave birth—and a replicant at that, a detail so startling he’s killed for being associated with it. In Dune, his computer-like brain, talents with poison, and sadistic tendencies are put to good use the Harkonnens.

Basically, if Denis Villeneuve needs to fill a small role with a talented actor capable of bringing nuance to a ghoulish sort of character—he goes straight to Dastmalchian.

7. The Boogeyman

Another “disturbed guy” role, this time in Rob Savage’s 2023 tale of a father and two young daughters grieving the recent loss of the family matriarch. Dastmalchian plays a man who’s suffered his own terrible loss, and shows up early in the movie to deliver a macabre warning about evil spirits—before passing on the great beyond himself. As in many horror movies past, a whole lot of trouble that follows might have been avoided, if only the main characters had paid closer attention to what they assume is a raving lunatic.

8. Rosario

This recent horror indie lends genre cred to the proceedings by casting Dastmalchian as the greasy neighbor of an elderly woman who dies amid a blizzard—trapping her estranged granddaughter in with the corpse. While supernatural forces supply the majority of the menace in Rosario, Dastmalchian’s character is there to add even more unease to the situation. He’s quirky, too; let’s just say if you borrow his air fryer, he’ll be very interested to get it back sooner than later.

9. Last Voyage of the Demeter

Dastmalchian tests his sea legs aboard the same ship bringing Dracula from Bulgaria to London, playing the ill-fated but determined quartermaster on the similarly ill-fated voyage. Ahead of the film’s 2023 release, his status as not just a horror actor, but a diehard horror fan, came through in an interview with Fangoria: “I’m grateful to be a part of making the first, in my opinion, absolutely scary Dracula film to come along in a very, very, very long time,” he said. “The fact that I’m a part of not only a Dracula movie, but a Universal Pictures Dracula movie, and the fact that it’s going to be in cinemas and that people are going to get to go and be on the ship, the Demeter, which I’ve always dreamt of telling that story.”

10. Late Night With the Devil

With retro style that perfectly captures its late 1977 talk-show setting, this 2023 found-footage tale imagines a TV host has decided to film a live program in honor of Halloween with carefully selected spooky guests. It’s a gimmick that backfires when the host’s own dark past reaches out from beyond the grave—but the ride to get there is entertaining as hell, with Dastmalchian giving an outstanding performance as a man whose glib exterior hides some rather terrifying secrets.

What are your favorite Dastmalchian performances to date? Share them (genre and non-genre too!) in the comments below.

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