Summary
- Joel Kinnaman teases the possibility of playing a new character in the DCU, despite Rick Flag’s death in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad.
- Kinnaman likes Flag’s death scene but is open to exploring a different role in the franchise’s reboot.
- Kinnaman’s background in action movies makes him a potential fit for characters like Deathstroke in the new DCU.
After playing Rick Flag in the two Suicide Squad films, Joel Kinnaman addresses his future within the DCU, teasing he could play a new character since Flag died in James Gunn’s film.
Kinnaman debuted as Flag in 2016, in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, which, despite being a box office hit, was severely criticized by fans and critics. However, the actor was one of the few who had the opportunity to reprise his role in the 2021 film, alongside Viola Davis and Margot Robbie as Amanda Waller and Harley Quinn, respectively. Unfortunately, the character was killed by John Cena’s Peacemaker, which would make his return in the new DCU a bit complicated. But not impossible according to the actor.
In a recent interview with the Post-Credit Podcast, Kinnaman confessed that he really likes Flag’s death scene, and addressed his future in the franchise, revealing that he would like to play a new role, since Gunn and Safran are rebooting the whole franchise:
“Yeah, you know, but I love that scene though… It was such a good way to go. But, yeah, for sure. Maybe I’ll come back and play some nasty villain in a couple of years.”
Gunn often works with the same actors multiple times, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if Kinnaman was part of the new DCU, and since it’s a franchise that’s just getting started, there’s a long list of characters available for the actor to play, whether they are villains or heroes. Since Kinnaman is an action movie guy, characters like Deathstroke would be a very good fit for him.
Joel Kinnaman Tried Method Acting but it Didn’t Work
Kinnaman has built a solid career since his beginnings in Swedish film and television, and has always excelled primarily in the action genre. His big break in Hollywood came in 2014 with RoboCop, and he has appeared in projects such as Run All Night, Altered Carbon, Hanna or The Informer. His next film, Silent Night, will once again test his skills as an action man, but it is also a great challenge for him as an actor.
The film directed by John Woo tells the story of a man who, after losing his son in a shooting between gangs, goes out to look for those responsible and is shot in the throat, leaving him without a voice. After his recovery, he decides to take revenge on those who took his son from him.
But throughout the entire film, the character does not speak. And, to play him, Kinnaman tried not speaking for a long period of time. However, as he revealed to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, he failed. After having assured his fiancée that he was not going to talk during the entire shooting, after the first day on set he gave up:
“Then the first day of shooting starts, and I get in the car. Super quiet the whole car ride to set. And then, I get into the makeup trailer and everyone’s, like, hanging out and, like, talking, and I’m sitting there in the makeup trailer. I had a really, really intense silent car ride to set. The car ride was basically the whole thing, you know? So that kind of charged me up with enough silence that I needed for the rest of the shoot.”
Silent Night is scheduled to make its theatrical release on December 1, 2023.
