There are some famous people who truly have “one of us nerds” energy. Despite seeing them on our TV screens and in hit films, they feel like someone we’d play D&D with at our dining room table or video games in our living room. The roles they choose and how they infuse their fandom love into their personal and professional life spark so much joy. That’s how we at Nerdist feel about David Dastmalchian, who stars in the live-action Street Fighter film as M. Bison. His resume and entire persona are both wholly unique, so we were excited to speak with him about Street Fighter and his love for gaming, his Good Fiend Films company, being friends with 50 Cent, and so much more.
Nerdist: I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with you before, around the time you did Late Night with the Devil. So I know that you’re a forever monster kid at heart, just like I am. But did you grow up playing any video games? Were you a Street Fighter fan?
David Dastmalchian: So every day after school, starting in sixth grade, Steve Armstrong and I would run home from Oak Park Elementary School. We would get right into the living room and we would get a Twix bar, which his mom considered an afterschool snack, a Welch’s grape soda, and we would play Castlevania, Legendary Wings, Metroid, and Mega Man constantly. But it was almost always Castlevania and Legendary Wings. And that went on for the next few years. Now, starting in seventh and eighth grade-ish, I guess it was in eighth grade, I started going to a place called The Fun Factory, which was an arcade near us where we would play standup games and Street Fighter became just the thing that people would do.
They’d play with their friends and play against strangers. I would go to the arcade and I’d drop all my quarters in Street Fighter. They still had the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom game at this place, which I loved. And they had Dragonslair.
I’m not surprised that you have some great favorite childhood games. You were playing Street Fighter years ago and now you’re going to be in the film, which is super exciting. What was it about the role of Bison that drew you to it? And what has it been like to step into the shoes of such an iconic video game villain?
Dastmalchian: The thing that drew me to Bison was the fact that [the role] scared me. It wasn’t even on my radar. I knew they were making a Street Fighter movie, but I didn’t see my way into it. I was a fan of the people making it. I didn’t know where I could live in that world and what their vision for that world was. So when I got the call that Kitao [Sakurai] wanted to meet with me and talk to me about Bison, honestly, my pulse started to raise because I was like, “That’s not like anything I’ve ever gotten the opportunity to do before.”
It’s similar to how I felt when I got the call that the Cairnes brothers wanted to meet with me on Late Night with the Devil. It’s the same way I felt when Denis [Villeneuve] asked me if I wanted to come be a part of Dune. They were certain roles, certain types of roles that I had never been challenged as an actor to deliver. I would say my anxiety, my blood pressure, my pulse went up. To me, that is a good sign. It’s a place that I get excited about because I tend to grow and push myself and create interesting things when I’m outside of a comfort zone. So that, as an actor, drew me like a moth to the flame. Kitao and the way he spoke about the film, his passion for the game, his passion for his idea made me want to just jump.
And finally, the nostalgia factor, of course, was huge. The idea that both the video game, which is very important, but also the film that I saw when I was young, my favorite part was the role that I would then now be given an opportunity to embody. And that scared the shit out of me, which is a great challenge. Again, that’s like when I got the opportunity to portray an iconic Shakespeare character or an iconic Tennessee Williams character or an iconic Arthur Miller character.
You want to live up to the legacy. There’s ghosts in there. And think about the millions, millions of hours that people have spent collectively playing this game. Think about the millions of hours that people have collectively loved going to the movies and love being entertained. I was like, “Man, this is a leveling up and this is a big boss.” My fear is the big boss.
If you have a boss at the end of every level of your life, mine continues to be fear. It’s fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of myself, fear of death. So the big boss for me to face down every time a job is really meaningful to me is that fear. And that was it, man. I was like, “All right, let’s do this.”
That’s so cool. Fear can be such a great motivator if we allow it to be. It really just depends on how you harness that energy. And it looks like you figured out the secret to harnessing it and producing something that’s wonderful. I remember seeing the Street Fighter cast together when I was at CinemaCon. And one of the things that really struck me was the natural chemistry and camaraderie that you all had. You felt like a group of people who would legitimately actually be friends and hang out. What was your filming experience like?
Dastmalchian: The experience that I had on the film was the experience that I want for the world. It’s the experience that I want for the country. It was all these different people from different walks of life, backgrounds, points of view, personalities, styles, chemistries, all these people coming together and the common vision of Kitao’s movie, which all of us were amped about.
Every one of us had obviously met with and talked to Kitao and gotten so excited because he was going to do something so crazy, something that people had never seen before. But everybody had their own path into this thing. And that was scary for me because I was like, “You’re meeting so many new people and personalities. How is this going to go? How is our fighting stuff going to go? How is our scene work going to go?What is it going to be like at the end of the day? Are we going to hang out? Are we going to be friends?”
And man, it was epic. I got to give so much love to everybody in this cast. There’s not a single person that didn’t in some way or another throw themselves into the mix and go for it, trying to push themselves. Everybody showed up ready to play. There was not a single person that had an attitude. The generosity of Fiddy [actor Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson] and how he rented Luna Park, which by the way, for me and my family, is a very special place because I’ve worked in Australia a couple times and going to Luna Park is like a tradition for me.
He booked the whole place for our cast and crew. Every snack bar was open, so you could get what you wanted. Every ride was open. I rode the Mousetrap with Cody Rhodes. I did bumper cars with Eric Andre… We made magic, you know what I mean? That’s the kind of bonding that we had.
That’s beautiful. You know, I would not have pegged a friendship between you and 50 Cent, but I love it.
Dastmalchian: He’s so smart and cool and intriguing. I just love talking to him. And you know what? What I love about him is that he talked to my kids, my family. He gets down to your level and he’s absolutely generous with his time. My kids were freaking out. They are huge fans of him and it was awesome. We had a dinner party one night. Kitao was cooking for us just like dad of the family. He’s making us all this food. We’re just hanging out with his family and in walks Fiddy and I said to my son, “Don’t bother him now.” But he came right over and just started talking to my son. It was amazing.
Very cool! He seems like a fun person overall. I love that you said filming on set made you wish that same energy was in the world. It seems like you are trying to curate that with your own creative projects. Tell me more about Good Fiend, the projects you have in progress, and what your overall vision is for the company.
Dastmalchian: Right now, I am sitting in my office at Good Fiend HQ. [Writer’s Note: It was indeed spooky looking, with a werewolf creature looming over his shoulder. Gotta love him!] We are on a mission to take all of the big ideas and questions that we wrestle with as writers, as people, as beings trying to make sense of this life, this world that we’re living in, and we funnel it all through the lens of something that brings me so much joy, which is genre storytelling.
A lot of people like myself discovered the power of genre storytelling at a young age through action and adventure, horror, science fiction, because it was a form of escape. And I still think entertainment is an incredible form of escape. I love people getting transported to other places, but for me, the writer, the creator, the producer, I want to wrestle with some ideas and questions that make life so fascinating to me. So doing it through that lens has brought me so much joy.
And we’re doing it in movies like Late Night with the Devil. We’ve got several new movies coming down the pipeline now, which we’re in post-production on, including Kodak Super-XX. And we’ve got a movie called The Shepherd I’m really proud of. We’re getting ready to go into production imminently on a film that I wrote. We also do comic books and publishing. We’ve got Kingdom of Earth, which just came out, that I co-created with Leah Kilpatrick, who’s a member of the Good Fiend family.
Movies often want to make it like, “Oh, you’re free now. Life is better.” It’s not that easy. Life is messy, man. Life is sloppy. Life is scary. Life is hard. But man, I love making fun and entertaining stories that people can get together and be like, “Yeah, life is hard. Life sucks sometimes, but let’s go to the movies. Let’s read these comics together. Let’s game together.”
That brings me so much joy. And a thing like going back to Street Fighter, that’s taking what I’m trying to do here at Good Fiend to the power of a thousand. That’s the sonic boom. That’s what I would love to be able to do with the work that I do, get that kind of filmmaking going. I go and work on a movie like Street Fighter, and I learn and get so inspired to come back here to Good Fiend and do the stuff that we make.
Your dedication to genre entertainment is so important, especially with how it has come into sharper focus. Across the board, whether it’s from an indie perspective or a major film like Sinners, some of the biggest movies of the last few years have been genre films. These were things that just a couple of decades ago the general public may not have even been aware of certain comics and origin stories. They were considered to be niche and nerdy, you know, and now it is mainstream.
Dastmalchian: Yes! And if you’re out there and you’re feeling like, “God, I’m scared right now. I feel under attack,” that’s a reality. And many people have been dealing with this their whole lives. And I’m like, let’s make the movie theater a space where people can come together and feel safe and celebrate together and go on crazy adventures and watch mind blowing movies and the unifying power of story.
Even if I’m telling you a story about people getting their eyeballs ripped out, or if I’m being a complete psychopathic tyrannical despot like Bison, I still get excited about the thought that people are going to show up from all different slices of society who just love kick ass movies and want to get their minds blown.
For sure. Now, choose your fighter: Bison or One Piece’s Mr. 3?
Dastmalchian: This is a great question. Bison would obliterate Mr. 3 when he has the full embodiment of the psycho power. There’s going to be a lot of surprises when you go see Street Fighter, the movie. Does Bison actually have the cycle power in this film? That’s a really important question. He wants you to think he does. He needs you to think he does, just like all the biggest, most terrifying leaders in history were actually terrified, I think, underneath it all.
A lot of bravado and ego. Smoke and mirrors!
Dastmalchian: Exactly! But let’s imagine Bison in the full prowess of his power with full psycho power. Mr. 3 is incredibly powerful and his wax is like steel, but it’s not impenetrable. It’s not indestructible, as unfortunately evidenced by Luffy smashing it with his big stupid hand. So I believe at the end of the day, it would be a kick ass battle to watch. I would love to watch it play out. I think it would be so fun, but Bison would ultimately, like a cosmic drill of fury and anger, just drive right through Mr. 3 and there would be little bits of wax all over the arena.
Editor’s note: Nerdist is a subsidiary of Legendary Digital Networks