00:00Incredible legend named Mark Hamill did the voice of the Joker answering my phone for me.
00:07And I think what he did with that voice is, to me, as iconic as it gets.
00:12He's in the basement. I should know. I bound and gagged him there.
00:15That's what it goes like. And then he just laughs and cackles.
00:17And it's very loud and obnoxious, and I love it. And I'll never delete it.
00:23Hey, I'm Aaron Couch with The Hollywood Reporter here at San Diego Comic-Con
00:27with actor and comic book writer David Dismalchin. How are you doing?
00:31Amazing. This is day three for me of San Diego Comic-Con 2024,
00:36and it has been literally like one mind-blowing experience after the next.
00:41What I love about what you are doing here this year is, obviously, you've been in a lot of movies,
00:46very busy actor, but this convention actually started as a comic book convention,
00:50and you have many, many comic books that you're kind of ready to unveil to the world.
00:55I mean, what are just a few of them? I know there are probably too many to mention,
00:58but what are a few that you're here kind of talking about?
01:01And thank you for saying that. It is a huge honor for me that I'm now part of the comic book publishing world,
01:05and it's a dream of mine come true. I've been doing Count Crowley for Dark Horse for several years.
01:10We've got a new volume in trade paperback form coming soon for volume three.
01:14I'm also writing a new series for DC Comics.
01:17I get to helm their Creature Commando series, which I'm so excited about.
01:23And then Todd McFarlane's been overseeing a project that I wrote and created
01:27and is about to come out from Image called Knights vs. Samurai.
01:32Also got to do some horror panels for some of the one-shots I've been doing for Dark Horse DC and other publishers.
01:37So it's a really exciting, crazy, nerdvana time for me.
01:40It's quite a next chapter for you, because one story I love that you've told,
01:46you were a nervous kind of first-time comic book writer on the set of The Suicide Squad,
01:51and you would deliver the first issues of Count Crowley to Margot Robbie,
01:55who's also a big comic book geek, and kind of wait to see what she's thought about it.
01:59And then I think out of the blue, what happened?
02:01She tweeted something about it, or that's how you found out she liked it, or what?
02:04I was with my wife Eve at, I think, I want to say an Applebee's in Georgia,
02:11near where we were filming The Suicide Squad, and all of a sudden my phone blew up,
02:14and they were like, oh my gosh, look at what's going on.
02:17And Margot had tweeted when she was still on Twitter, or whatever it's called now.
02:22I just read Count Crowley, and I love it, and I, ah, it's crazy.
02:28I'm very lucky.
02:28James has been a big supporter and fan of my comic book creations,
02:33and he wore a Count Crowley shirt the last day of filming on The Suicide Squad,
02:39and I'm surrounded by really amazing people who've been so supportive.
02:42Yeah, it's amazing.
02:44You didn't know how people would receive this,
02:47and now, what's this, five years later when you're on set,
02:49or four years later, you have seven, eight comics, you have a lot of comics, right?
02:53Yeah, yeah, I think this year I have my writing pen in the process,
02:59and almost to be published somewhere between,
03:02I think we have eight different comic projects that I am working on,
03:05and I'm getting to work with some of the best publishers in the world,
03:09some of the best artists in the world.
03:10I just yesterday got to be on Jim Lee's panel for DC,
03:15and then he unveiled the cover he did for my New Creature Commando series,
03:21which we got to sign prints of.
03:22I'm sitting there in the middle of the floor at Comic-Con at the DC booth,
03:27signing prints of my comic's first cover with Jim Lee.
03:31It's wild.
03:33A lot of people don't realize this.
03:34I didn't actually realize this until people like you told me.
03:38When you're on a film set, there's a lot of downtime.
03:42True.
03:42And how do you spend your downtime?
03:44You're writing, right?
03:45I'm either writing or I'm watching old horror movies.
03:47I always like to set up Shudder or one of my streaming services on my trailer
03:52and bring old Blu-rays and DVDs that I've been collecting.
03:55And I say, oh, like old movies that are now transferred
03:58and have really cool 4K editions.
03:59And then I'm writing.
04:01So there's a lot of downtime.
04:02You're waiting for the next setup.
04:04You're waiting for the crew to get everything ready.
04:08And it's a patient process.
04:09And I find it to be an incredible way to pass the time
04:13as well as to feel like I'm getting to use all this creative energy
04:17I'm taking from all the artists I'm working with
04:19and funneling it into telling a story.
04:21Do you, you know, when you're at home,
04:24do you have an office, a place where you keep your mementos?
04:27Are you also writing there?
04:28Is that, how much of this is done at home?
04:30How much is on set?
04:31I love writing at home.
04:32My office is so cool.
04:33Even I have this very strange house in Los Angeles.
04:36And I've got a big open-air office that's at the top of this weird flight of stairs.
04:40It looks like it's in, like, an old church maybe.
04:42I don't know how to describe my house other than to say it's very weird
04:45and it's totally us.
04:46And it's surrounded by all the old black-and-white glossies I've collected
04:49of, you know, Vincent Price and Christopher Lee and Lon Chaney
04:53and then toys.
04:55I've collected monster toys and superhero toys.
04:57And then I've got just row after row of my long boxes of comics.
05:00So whenever I'm devoid of inspiration and I need a little boost,
05:04I just look around me.
05:06Would you say, do you or your kids have more toys, would you say,
05:09at this point in your life?
05:10Me.
05:11Yeah.
05:11Okay.
05:11Completely.
05:12Do they, but are they hands-off for them?
05:16I try to be cool about it because it's like I don't want to have everything
05:19in, like, you know, hermetically sealed and kept away from it.
05:23It's not a museum, although I get a little agitist sometimes.
05:26Like, I have a spinner rack next to my work desk,
05:28and it's filled with old vintage issues of creepy, eerie magazine,
05:32famous monsters of film land.
05:33And once in a while I'll find an issue in, like, my kid's room,
05:36just, like, creased weird or folded funny.
05:38And I'm like, ugh.
05:39But then I remember, like, they're just things,
05:41and they just carry such wonderful memories.
05:43And I think it's awesome that my kids would want to, like,
05:45peel through those pages.
05:46I want to go back to Creature Commandos.
05:51So James Gunn, his new universe, the first thing out of there is going to be
05:55an animated show.
05:56And he's entrusting you, him and Jim Lee are entrusting you with the comic.
06:00It's unrelated, right?
06:01You kind of get to create your own take.
06:04Yeah.
06:04James' animated series, by the way, I was on the panel yesterday when they
06:08surprised us all with a bunch of footage from Creature Commandos.
06:11It was pretty awesome.
06:12James' series is wholly in the universe that he is building, you know,
06:18and it is incredible.
06:22It's funny how I learned that he was making an animated series.
06:25He and I were on our way up to his bachelor getaway before he got married
06:31to Jennifer Holland, and he said,
06:34What are you working on in the comics?
06:35How's Count Crowley going?
06:36I said, It's great.
06:37Guess what?
06:37I'm getting to do Creature Commandos for DC.
06:40He goes, Look.
06:41And he had already, like, some animatics and footage from his animated series.
06:45I was like, Oh, my God.
06:46And, you know, I was afraid maybe that my comic series would get canceled
06:49because it's a different Creature Commandos than what James is doing.
06:53And he said, No, no, no.
06:54It's totally fine.
06:55It exists.
06:55And publishing is its own thing.
06:57And so mine is a very dark, dramatic horror military story about a group of disparate outcasts
07:07who have monstrous abilities that have been recruited by this doctor who really does care for them
07:12but also is on a very, very thin razor's line between sanity and something else.
07:19And she's trying to help them find purpose in their lives.
07:21And the government may or may not be exploiting them for their abilities
07:25and the fact that their monsters might make it easier for them to get away with some stuff
07:29that they wouldn't maybe want, say, the Justice League to know about.
07:33The razor's line between insanity and maybe something else.
07:37That's interesting.
07:38Or sanity and maybe...
07:39Oh, sanity.
07:40Sanity is not.
07:41Dr. Barbara West's character I got to create for this new world,
07:44and she has just been doing all this incredible work,
07:49and she believes it's all scientifically explainable.
07:53Of course, we would look at it and say this seems a little supernatural,
07:55but she's found a cool technology that helps to activate monsters' superpowers,
08:00let's say, when they're going into battle.
08:02The problem is once, say, a werewolf turns wolf, once a vampire goes full vampire,
08:07it's hard to control them and say they're in the field with fellow soldiers.
08:10So that is what hasn't been tested yet, and yet General Wade Eiling,
08:15who's a DC long-time character who isn't always the most scrupulous general,
08:20he kind of pushes them into a mission that they may not be ready for
08:23and things go a little bit sideways.
08:25They did let me get very violent, bloody, and gory with this series,
08:28so I'm excited for people to see the pages just splattered.
08:32And you got to create a DC character.
08:33That's pretty cool.
08:34And I get to play with DC characters.
08:36I mean, I get Zatanna Zatar makes an appearance very soon into the story,
08:40and she becomes a really important element in the story and other surprises.
08:46Well, let's go into the Deadpool and Wolverine popcorn bucket.
08:50Speaking of superheroes.
08:52Oh, boy, here we go.
08:53So let's do maybe three questions out of here.
08:55Okay, here we go.
08:57I'm nervous.
08:58I'm reaching into Wolverine's mouth.
09:01Oh, I got something.
09:02I have very big hands.
09:04I'm sorry, Wolverine.
09:05I have very big hands.
09:06Okay, I've gotten this question since the first Ant-Man movie I did,
09:12and it's a great question, and I always choke on the answer.
09:15Okay, sorry, this isn't going to be your favorite answer.
09:18If you could have only one superpower, what would it be?
09:21If I could have only one superpower, what would it be?
09:25I know.
09:26I know.
09:27Every time I screw up or, like, get somebody upset with me,
09:33that I could say, I'm sorry, and then they immediately forgive me and move on.
09:36That would be a great superpower.
09:38I'm so annoyed sometimes when I want people to just move on, and they won't.
09:43Okay.
09:44Number two.
09:45So, what is your all-time favorite cinematic universe?
09:53Ooh, interesting.
09:55You've been in Marvel, the MCU.
09:57The DCU.
09:58The DCU.
09:59Yeah, yeah.
09:59And there are many other cinematic universes as well.
10:03There's the Kaufman cinematic universe, of course, the Toxic Avengers,
10:06and the, you know, Sergeant Kabuki Man universes.
10:09But I would say my favorite thus far in the pantheon of cinema would be the MCU.
10:21All right.
10:21Last question.
10:22Let's see.
10:23Who is the most iconic voice in an animated series that comes to mind?
10:28Well, if I had my phone on me, I would pull up my voicemail.
10:32Have you ever called my phone and gotten my voicemail?
10:35I don't think so, no.
10:36Well, it's…
10:37You always pick up for me.
10:38I do.
10:38Of course, Aaron.
10:39I see you calling.
10:40Hello.
10:41So, if you get my voicemail.
10:43My poor mother, may she rest in peace.
10:45It drove her crazy because it's very long.
10:47But I did a film called Sushi Girl when I first moved to Los Angeles,
10:51and one of the stars of that movie was an incredible legend named Mark Hamill.
10:54And since I couldn't attend the wrap party or get his wrap gift, he said,
10:57what would you like?
10:57And I said, would you do my voicemail for me?
10:59So, he took my phone into his trailer, and he did the voice of the Joker
11:03answering my phone for me.
11:05And I think what he did with that voice is, to me, as iconic as it gets.
11:13I had no idea.
11:14That's incredible.
11:15I'm so jealous.
11:16David can't come to the phone right now.
11:18He's in the basement.
11:18I should know.
11:19I bound him, gagged him there.
11:20That's what it goes like.
11:21And then he just laughs and cackles, and it's very loud and obnoxious, and I love it,
11:24and I'll never delete it.
11:25And your late mother suffered through it.
11:28She would listen, and she'd always go, David, when are you going to change that message?
11:32It's so long.
11:33It hurts my ears.
11:34And I go, sorry, Mom.
11:35Just, if I don't answer, don't stay on the phone.
11:39Text me.
11:40How does texting work?
11:43All right.
11:43Well, David Desfalchian, thanks.
11:45Glad you had a good Comic-Con.
11:46Thanks, Hollywood Reporter.
11:47Thank you, Comic-Con.
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