One of the coolest things a director can do is form a group of frequent collaborators that they bring back again and again for new projects. More than, say, Spike Lee playing Denzel Washington in a handful of his joints from the last 30 years (although it’s still one of the best actor-director collaborations of all time), a stable of recurring actors can give a filmmaker’s production a kind of community theater vibe. That is, their work features a group of people dressing up in different costumes and appearing on different sets, over and over again. Think of Mike Flanagan and his troupe or, much further back, the days when Orson Welles used his Mercury Theater actors in his films.
James Gunn became one of these directors, casting many of the same actors in all of his projects. He already had a few staples early in his career, namely Michael Rooker, his brother Sean Gunn, and Nathan Fillion, who appeared in virtually everything Gunn directed (and even stuff he only wrote, like “The Belko Experiment”). Since directing the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, Gunn has added even more actors to his repertoire. We can see this in his first DC Comics film, “The Suicide Squad,” as Gunn couldn’t help but take some of his “Guardians” with him.
In addition to Sean Gunn, who plays Kraglin in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films and plays two characters in “The Suicide Squad” (Calendar Man and Weasel), Pom Klementieff (Mantis from the “Guardians” films) plays a dancer at a nightclub that the titular team visits. Even Sylvester Stallone, who appeared as Starhawk in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” and “Vol. 3,” provides the voice of King Shark in “The Suicide Squad.”
James Gunn’s troop is only growing
Gunn didn’t stop at “The Suicide Squad.” Now that he’s in charge of DC Studios and focused on expanding the DC Universe across an assortment of titles (including live-action and animated titles, video games, and more), he’s found a new avenue to pull out his Rolodex and recruit his former collaborators for roles big and small. While this approach could easily lead to stunts at the cost of finding the next great actor like Kevin Conroy, until now Gunn has simply populated his DCU with excellent actors – ones who also happen to be his trusted friends and creative partners.
Take “Creature Commandos,” which is technically the first entry in the DCU. The series features an all-star cast that’s actually quite good at voice acting (while Alan Tudyk is a highlight, the most surprising is Sean Gunn as G.I. Robot), and we’re already seeing the benefits of Gunn’s synergistic approach to the property, with Frank Grillo portraying Rick Flag Sr. in both animation and live-action (even if Flag himself takes a turn for the villain). That being said, Gunn has thus far tended to bring back his favorite collaborators as smaller supporting characters. Steve Agee, for example, reprises his role from “The Suicide Squad” as John Economos in “Creature Commandos,” while Rooker makes his obligatory appearance as a neo-Nazi killed by GI Robot. Linda Cardellini, who worked with Gunn on his first superhero title, “Super,” before playing a small but significant (and heartbreaking) role in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” also appears in “Creature Commandos,” as do “Guardians” trilogy alumni Gregg Lee Henry (Starlord’s grandfather) and Benjamin Byron Davis (Bletelsnort).
All of Gunn’s DC projects to date are currently streaming on HBO Max.
