With a commanding voice and formidable and magnetic screen presence, actor Benjamin Byron Davis has made a name for himself portraying complex characters in film, television, performance capture and theater. Video games may know him best as Dutch van der Linde, the complex, compelling and charismatic gang leader in Rockstar Games’s Red Dead Redemption saga. He also happens to be a longtime friend and collaborator of filmmaker James Gunn having appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 as hapless OrgoCorp Security Guard Bletelsnort. After playing in the Marvel Universe, Davis makes the jump to the DC Universe portraying crime boss Rupert Thorne in the latest episode of Creature Commandos, the acclaimed adult animated series that allowed him the opportunity to work with Gunn who is now the co-head of DC Studios.
Ahead of the episode’s release, The Beat had the immense pleasure of chatting with Davis over Zoom. During our conversation, Davis not only reflected on his friendship and professional relationship with Gunn but also his own personal fandom. In addition, Davis mulled over the possibility of reprising the role of Rupert Thorne in live-action.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Taimur Dar: I make it no secret how much I love James Gunn’s work. I think he’s one of the best filmmakers out there.
Benjamin Byron Davis: No question. James is just a genius. You have me at an advantage because I haven’t seen my episode except for a little bit of pickups that we did.
Taimur Dar: Most people are aware that quite a number of the actors in his projects are actual friends of James Gunn. You’re in fact such an actor. I believe I saw you post a photo on Instagram from 2009 when you went to dinner in New Orleans.
Benjamin Byron Davis: That was at Pascale’s Manale in New Orleans. They got great shrimp.
Taimur Dar: I’d love to know how you and James Gunn first met and became friends?
Benjamin Byron Davis: When I moved to L.A. at the turn of the century, I joined a theater company then called Zoo District. At that time in that company was a wonderful actress named Jenna Fischer. At that time Jenna Fischer was married to James. My recollection of meeting James the first time was a show I was doing for Zoo District called Master and Margarita. We had a party and Jenna’s husband was there. The rumor was he had just sold the screenplay to Scooby-Doo. I thought as a very self-important serious actor that was the goofiest thing I ever heard and I wanted to meet the guy who just sold the screenplay to Scooby-Doo. That’s the first night I really remember meeting James. I’ve been blessed to be his friend and get to know all his brothers. Sean [Gunn] and I are very good friends as well. If you don’t know this, the Gunn family is just an obscenely talented beautiful group of assholes I’m totally jealous of. It’s been a blessing.
Being a collaborator artistically was kind of a surprise. It was no surprise watching James’ success and his continued success. Believe me when I tell you, for all he’s done which is more than many do in a single lifetime, he’s just getting warmed up. Right then, he was still with Troma and doing an independent film with Jenna called Lollilove. Looking back on it from where we all are standing now it seems pretty magical. But at the moment we were just a bunch of chuckle-heads doing our best.
Taimur Dar: You play Rupert Thorne in Creature Commandos. Though he’s probably not known by the general public, Rupert Thorne is definitely a major character in the Batman mythos. I grew up with the ‘90s Batman animated series where he was voiced by—
Benjamin Byron Davis: John Vernon!
Taimur Dar: Looks like you do have some familiarity. How much did you know about the character Rupert Thorne before this project?
[Benjamin Byron Davis holds up copy of Detective Comics #469]
Benjamin Byron Davis: This is the first appearance. I got this on eBay after I booked it. This is 1977 issue #469 of Detective Comics which is the first appearance of Rupert Thorne. Yeah, I kicked the tires on the guy. When they sent me the sides, I didn’t know it was from James at first. All I knew was that there was a part. The part was just called Thorne. I grew up in the ‘80s and I was much more Marvel. But I was a huge comic book fan. In ’86 when Dark Knight Returns came out I was in high school. It’s funny, on the other side of James announcing my involvement at New York Comic Con, I called up one of my childhood buddies Ben Levine and just said, “I’m not actually working with Batman. But I’m playing the character who’s met Batman.” [Laughs]. That felt pretty cool. Little me is pretty chuffed by all of this.
Taimur Dar: One of the many things I admire about James Gunn is his ability to find humanity in even the most horrible characters. Even with someone like Rupert Thorne, there’s a moment in the episode where we find out he has a wife and two kids. Was that background provided to you and did it inform your performance?
Benjamin Byron Davis: I haven’t seen the episode but the script, as is true with all of James’ scripts, is beautifully written and quite evocative. I did know the whole script and I had the distinct pleasure of working, on the day that we recorded the episode, with Alan [Tudyk]. I think Alan and I were in the same building, but we were in different rooms connected via the Zoom call that James was also on. It’s hard not to have a good day when your director is James and your scene partner is Alan Tudyk. All you have to do is make sure you take your jaw off the floor and stay focused on the task at hand. The day I recorded we were butting up against the actors’ strike so we had to get it done. In fact, the same day I was recording Rupert I had go from there to Sony to do some ADR for Borderlands. As for Hollywood days go that was a pretty good one to be bouncing all over town working on two different projects. I never stop being a fan and I never stop pinching myself how lucky I am.
Taimur Dar: During a press junket with producer Dean Lorey. I asked him how much they based the character designs off the likeness of the actual actors. He admitted they didn’t really look at the actors for the designs, but there is enough resemblance that it’s not much of a stretch for actors to portray them in live-action. When you first saw Rupert Thorne in animation, could you immediately see yourself playing him in live-action?
Benjamin Byron Davis: Listen, I am a fan like everybody. I knew James’ idea about having actors follow the characters throughout different mediums. I never imagined that might be my fate when I booked the part. But I will say when I showed up to do ADR and I saw what he looked like, I was like, “Well, it definitely does not ‘not’ look like me!” The long and short of it is if James Gunn and Peter Safran ever want me to do anything, they know how to find me and they will find me delighted to be in business with them. Both of them. The first time I worked with Peter was on The Belko Experiment. To the point, Rupert Thorne in particular is a character should there be a chance for me to revisit and explore this character, it would be something I would be delighted to do. Should there be more for me to do, I would count myself very lucky. Should [James Gunn] want me to show up and play “Big Guy #2” in the background of anything, I’d show up for that too.
I am a friend of his but I’m also a fan of his. James always finds a way to find humanity in stories where other people would find horror or look away. For those of us who felt in our own lives isolated or a freak or ostracized or on the outside looking in, to have a storyteller like James out there in the world telling these stories that ultimately are about found family and surviving trauma and the good we can find in each other, I think he’s doing important work. Even when you look back on something with Humanzee, it’s the grossest and most awful. Yet somewhere in there is him concerning himself with the humanity of all creatures great and small. He’s a pretty remarkable storyteller and a pretty good dude.
Taimur Dar: It’s really delightful to hear you mention Humanzee because I definitely have gone down the James Gunn rabbit hole to explore some of his early work like PG Porn. Don’t suppose you’ve seen that one?
Benjamin Byron Davis: I’ve seen all of it! I booked a tiny thing that Peter [Safran] was producing that I didn’t know until years later that James was a producer on it too. I booked it through a wonderful director named Andrew Douglas. James had started a series of things with horror directors shooting comedies for Xbox. Again, I think it speaks to him and his Troma roots. There’s an absence of snobbery. If I’m not mistaken, PG Porn came out of the fact that he had time on his hands and he didn’t want to just sit around. So he made that. The same thing happened with the picture that you found with us at dinner in New Orlean. He was on pre-production on a film I wish more people knew called Super. It’s a magnificent film. By the way, the origin of the Peacemaker credits is kind of in Super which I brought up when we were doing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. This idea of everybody being exhausted at the end of the opening credits is James’ humor both lowbrow and highbrow at the same time. It’s his bailiwick.
Taimur Dar: It goes without saying that the soundtrack for Creature Commandos is absolutely stellar. I don’t suppose you have a particular favorite song?
Benjamin Byron Davis: Not yet. I was the kid who learned about music mostly through soundtracks. I would get soundtrack albums and that would introduce me to all these bands I did not know. James didn’t set out to become a studio head. He set out to become a rock star. That’s where he was aiming at the start of things. That his musical tastes are so established and cherished by so many people is pretty amazing. His brother, Sean, made me a few mixtapes that I still listen to. Creature Commandos, even just the opening track, puts a smile on my face. All of it. Seeing Sean’s work as GI Robot in that episode.
Taimur Dar: That third episode completely wrecked me!
Benjamin Byron Davis: It’s unbelievable, the humanity even in a character like that. Episode 2 made me long to go back and watch Elsa Lancaster as the Bride in the old [Bride of Frankenstein] film so I’m probably going to go back and watch that. But it is this thing that’s true I think of the Universal Monsters that James has brought to Creature Commandos; this isolated longing that Eric Frankenstein has that these monster stories tell. There’s that famous scene in the original Frankenstein film where the little girl throws flowers into the water and the monster sees you take pretty little things and you put them into the water. He picks up the girl and he does the same. He’s not aiming to drown a child, it just ends up being what happens because the monster is an idiot. But he also has a soul. James and his ability find the soul in characters that other people would recoil from is absolutely part of his oeuvre. It’s also one frame through which you can look at the successful legacy of the Universal Monster movies.
Taimur Dar: It’s been an immense pleasure not only getting to chat with you but also share our mutual admiration for James Gunn.
Benjamin Byron Davis: I’m happy we got to meet and got to talk to James. I’m a huge fan of his. I’m a huge fan of all his material. I’m just pleased as punch I get to be a part of it.
Creature Commandos is available to stream now on Max.
