Kansas City actor David Dastmalchian brings his love of horror to new comic book series

Rising up in Kansas Metropolis, David Dastmalchian was enamored along with his hometown’s most shadowy corners: its fabled haunted homes, the cabinets of Clint’s Comics, “Crematia Mortem’s Friday” on native TV, and even his Overland Park neighborhood’s mystical-seeming creeks and forests.

Every of those childhood haunts planted a seed for the Hollywood actor’s newest challenge — a collection of horror comics. Dastmalchian wrote the “Rely Crowley” collection a few troubled TV journalist named Jerri Bartman who works as a midnight monster film host and secretly hunts supernatural creatures in her Midwest city.

Among the many eventualities Bartman encounters: confronting werewolves and vampires whereas additionally attending Alcoholics Nameless and convincing her family members that she hasn’t relapsed — additionally impressed by Dastmalchian’s struggles with psychological sickness and habit.

Printed by Darkish Horse Comics — well-known for titles from “Sin Metropolis” and “Hellboy” to “Star Wars” — the collection is rolling out in phases.

With inventive tasks like “Rely Crowley” underneath manner — and having starred within the 2021 blockbusters “Dune” as Piter De Vries and “The Suicide Squad” as Polka-Dot Man — Dastmalchian, 46, now dwelling in Los Angeles, is approaching a brighter highlight with immense gratitude.

“Now that I’ve been capable of finding a path to psychological wellness and therapeutic, [going home] has been actually constructive and productive for me as a result of I really feel like I can take a look at the entire image, the entire tapestry of what my childhood seems like, and I’m grateful for each inch of it,” he mentioned.

Bitten in Johnson County

Dastmalchian’s first expertise on stage was in Shawnee Mission Theater within the Park’s manufacturing of “Joseph and the Wonderful Technicolor Dreamcoat.” That summer time, he informed his mother he didn’t wish to play baseball, however she inspired him to remain busy and drove him to auditions.

“I knew that I cherished theater …” he mentioned, noting his mom in the end took him to the American Heartland Theater, Theatre for Younger America, and the KCRep Spencer Theater. “I simply didn’t know the way a lot it was going to chunk me with its infectious bug.”

His lecturers at Shawnee Mission South Excessive College have been instrumental in shaping his early journey as an actor, he mentioned. As soon as Dastmalchian graduated in 1994, he went on to review appearing and theater at DePaul College in Chicago.

As we speak, he’s working with filmmakers and actors he used to examine in The Pitch and watch on the Tivoli Cinema on the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Artwork.

Dastmalchian’s massive break got here in 2008 because the Joker’s deranged henchman, Thomas Schiff, in Christopher Nolan’s “The Darkish Knight.” His filmography additionally contains “Ant-Man and the Wasp” alongside fellow Overland Park expatriate Paul Rudd, “Blade Runner 2049,” and Nolan’s upcoming movie “Oppenheimer.”

“Daily is such a present,” mentioned Dastmalchian, describing the philosophy behind how he chooses roles. “I wish to spend it with the individuals who raise me up, who assist me, who consider in me, who I can collaborate with in a very wholesome and thriving environment.”

Past that, he considers the challenge’s character and materials, he mentioned. No matter whether or not it’s horror, superhero, artwork home, or one other style, Dastmalchian is motivated by roles that give him a glimpse right into a lifestyle or expertise that’s totally different from his personal, he mentioned.

“Many occasions now, luckily, I’m at a spot the place I is usually a little extra selective,” he mentioned. “However I nonetheless really feel like, who’s reaching out to me? Who desires to contain me? And when individuals don’t, how can I create my very own tales and alternatives to inform and to share? I like it. It provides me a lot pleasure.”

Haunted however not hunted

Nonetheless on Dastmalchian’s dream checklist: filming a TV present in Kansas Metropolis and dwelling within the Crossroads Arts District along with his spouse, muralist Eve Dastmalchian, and two youngsters, Arlo and Pennie. His final such alternative was in 2016 when he filmed “All Creatures Right here Beneath,” a drama he wrote and starred in, with Missouri native David Koechner in Kansas Metropolis.

Dastmalchian is already planning to spend a Halloween weekend this fall touring Fringe of Hell, The Catacombs, and different Kansas Metropolis haunted homes that introduced him inspiration in his youth. And a comic book e-book tour in late summer time features a cease at Clint’s, in addition to different outlets within the space.

Between filming, selling, touring, and spending time along with his household, Dastmalchian is grateful storytelling can rework his brightest and darkest occasions right into a purposeful comedian, he mentioned. It’s an outlet that doesn’t shrink back from massive matters like equality, discrimination, and psychological well being.

“It’s nearly incalculable the percentages that I’m not solely alive, contemplating I battled deep melancholy and suicide whereas an opiate addict,” Dastmalchian mentioned. “However the truth that I’m now 20 years into my journey of psychological well being and restoration and located a profession that’s all that I ever dreamed about? I’m so grateful each day that that is the life I get to guide.”

This story was initially revealed on Startland Information, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.