25:44
And Bison is one of the most iconic villains. Oh my god, the Bison's coming out already. I love it. He's one of the most iconic villains in all of video games. When you found out that you got this role, what was your awareness of Bison and past the script, where were you looking for a sense of, you know, how to find who that guy is? So, I didn't always play Bison when I was playing Street Fighter back in the day. In fact, I would go like the easiest character for me to play was always Blanka and I would play it at the Fun Factory at the mall in Kansas where I grew up. Um, and that was my most winningest character cuz I just I could button smash my day my way through a like we'd go to the movies, my friends
and I and then you'd go to Fun Factory and whatever quarters you had left you put into the machines and I would play Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Street Fighter, and sometime uh sometimes um Oh what was it called? Dragon uh Dragon Quest. Dragon Quest, thank you. Um, which was just all about just a quarter monster just eats quarters. Um, but Bison aesthetically, I always thought the aesthetic and the vibe and the look and the feel of Bison was by far my favorite. Striking. Striking, powerful, um, just cool. Great silhouette. Yeah, it's just like a really imposing figure. Yeah, there's something um that is like you know, iconic about the figure and it evokes so many different feelings and thoughts and I love it. So,
when take all that into mind and you're go, "Okay, I see Bison in my head. I see a figure floating in my mind." If you say to me, "I'm Bison." I see a guy who's floating like this, who's got the broad shoulders in the red and the hat. Like I like the red more than the green. Um, but what I didn't see was me. So, when a director who I really respect and who has great artistic vision sits down to talk to me about a Street Fighter movie and my thought is like, what? I wonder what role he could be considering me for? And he starts talking about Bison. I just I was like, it was one of those It was a moment This is such like a deep cut for anyone that's not a theater nerd, I apologize to you. Now, PSA number three of the day.
When you are on a pop culture talk show to discuss uh a video game adaptation of a film, probably don't use theater references because many members of your audience may go, what is this guy talking about? But, I trust that you will go along with me on this, guys. I remember this director coming to me when I was in Chicago. One of my favorite playwrights of all time is Tennessee Williams. One of my favorite plays that Tennessee Williams ever wrote was The Glass Menagerie. I had so many personal connections to the story and I felt like I understood it and I understood what it was about, but I also understood that I would probably never get to play Tom Wingfield because I just am not the all-American
Midwest boy that is Tom Wingfield in that play. And this brilliant director came to me and just said I'm doing The Glass Menagerie. I was like, wow. And he's like, I want you to work on it. And I was like I could see myself as Amanda before Tom. I was like Who am I playing? And he was like, you're Tom. You This is what I'm going to do with this play and this is how it's going to work and this is why I want you to be my Tom. And that's the gift of what I do, man. It's the gift of directors that see me and say to me like, I have a vision and this is why I think you can do it. And then they give me an opportunity to think about it, which I did with the Tom Wingfield of it all. And ultimately went and embarked on that
which terrified me because I felt like it was something so far removed from how I envisioned myself as a human being as an actor and I just did it and it was one of the most rewarding most incredible most powerful experiences I ever had on stage. Fast forward now to a career in acting where often times people see me in a thing and they see me in a thing because they've seen me do something similar or adjacent to a thing which is great. I'm so grateful for that. So you could be like Dave normally plays characters within this kind of bull's eye zone. Then you have a director of such distinct vision who cares so much about this video game who cares so much about making this movie and he starts talking to me about why me
and Bison and um Dude, I mean just like this? Yeah. I was levitating. I was on that conversation. I started levitating because I he helped me start to see something in myself that I didn't see in myself. Yeah. That's huge and you don't have to be an actor Yeah. or writer or creative person even for someone to impact your life like that. I hope somebody in your life at some point sees something for you that you don't even see for yourself and that you can have the courage or at least the insanity enough like me to trust them. And go for it because that's how we level up. It's just like in a game like if you really want to level up Those were one of those moments where And it doesn't mean you're you're
infallible or that you're you're you know, impenetrable by concepts such as failure or fear but like That was insane dude. I really felt like I was like oh I can feel the psycho power bubbling up within me now. Well, we talk about that silhouette of Bison's and I have to imagine as an actor you there's a degree of like how do I fill that silhouette? Where do I find myself within that character? I know that you and Kitau, last time we spoke, we talked about how you looked at dictators like Idi Amin and Mussolini for like how to inform your performance a little bit. What did you learn about enthralling large groups and how did that make its way into how you approach the character?
What's the um Help me, internet. What's the synonym for like iconic? They're these archetypal human poses, gestures, energies that when you look at you just go, oh yeah. So, with Kitau, we were like, okay, in the game, obviously Bison is the most confident, some would say cocky, brave, bold, whatever the word is. I guess confident. Like he just the his smile, the way he looks down on everybody else, the way his attacks even come from up here to be like, he's looking down on you. He's he is more powerful than you and he knows it. That kind of physical architecture as a human and presentation as a leader amongst like a movement. I was like, that's awesome. Yeah, how do we find the people that presented themselves that way
so that they could then get hordes of people to follow them and help them do their bidding so they could bring their mission to life. Idi Amin, exact like such a like charming, powerful, his smile could like melt a room, but also he always made sure everybody knew he was like the most like you did not cross this man. Mussolini, exactly. Think about people on a more like a different level, but there was definitely something to the Jim Jones, the David Koresh. And Kital and I read this narcissistic Pied Pipers book series of like all the different
psychological templates for people that were able to convince people to do these movements. And how somebody gets people to Because you can't just say to everybody in the room like I'm going to give you all $1,000 if you do That's not enough. It's not money. No. They have to believe in you. I built with Kital and with our writers and with the creative team, I wanted to build out an idea of like Shadaloo. Criminal organization, sure. That's a not enough. So was Jim Jones's organization was a criminal organization. So was David Koresh. So was technically Idi Amin cuz he was breaking all kinds of international law and laws and even his
country's laws. So I was like criminal Leader of criminal organization is to me just like a very thin part of the definition of this person who is got an entire army of not just dolls, like soldiers and warriors. Like how do you get that many people to believe in you? And I was like, how cool would it be if he comes to this destitute third world nation-state island after a lifetime of him like building up and learning and training in both martial arts and trying to understand the esoteric power of magic and power and psycho power and the Hadouken and all these things that he's been trying to study and master cuz he understands and believes that humans have held themselves back cuz we're such a foolish creature that the time to
evolve is now. And we are ready. And those who are brave enough to take the call and make the evolution happen, we're going to move forward and everybody else can just f off and die. Mhm. Um so in this world we started building I was like, what if he had started this movement? He understood that he could utilize criminal enterprise and breaking laws, the laws of man, national laws, federal laws, international laws as a way of developing the resources needed so that he could train and help people like get to understand his mission. And then he comes to this place where people are like can't feed their families. They can't and he trains them and he helps bring in
casinos and drug trade and human trafficking. All that's just part of the operation. That's not because it's he's evil or it's fun. It's like, "Oh." And he shows these people how they can feel empowered and they become they start to accrue wealth and they start to actually understand that like with their bodies, if they do the training that I've been studying, we could all evolve to that level and it's the shadow law. The law that is greater than the laws of man. So, we build all this together. It's so fun. We think about it and but I keep going like, "Kitau, why me?" You can look at the game, especially post Street Fighter as you get into the evolution of the series, Alpha, etc.
He becomes bigger and bigger. He looks like John Cena, you know? Yeah. I love John. I Who doesn't? Brilliant actor, but he wasn't what Kitau was seeing. Kitau was seeing me in his head. So, we I go "I get it. I can put on the hat, the cape, the countenance, the presence of Bison, but what if the power I haven't accrued yet that I've promised all these people who are now following me that I can guarantee them is going to be given to them and I've basically lied and I've told them I have possession of the psycho power, that I can do these things and that I can't. So, this movie to me became about an objective. I'm not just the villain of the film. In my opinion, Bison is the star of his own movie because he has
this very important mission he has to fulfill and he doesn't have and he can't let if anybody finds out that he doesn't have what he's supposed to have like outside of his very tight enclosed like um you know layer. Yeah. He's effed. Everything's Well, you know, it's something that's so interesting about that iconic bison pose. It's arms crossed, but we know that this is actually quite a defensive way to hold oneself. And I think it's very interesting that you guys are finding that kind of nuance in that body language. Um when you think about um the archetypal gestures uh of this you can think of like yeah, like a bully a dictator a powerful figure like that.
It I don't believe at the end of the day that I think there are two types. I think we may or may not be in the current historical timeline of our humanity in the presence of an individual who goes home at the end of the day and genuinely looks in the mirror and is like I am the best thing that's ever happened. I think that is a possible one faction of this. Mhm. Um in fact, like I said, I think we're living in the timeline and under the shadow of a person or maybe people who are who are like that who are just come sometimes freaking idiots and like totally do crazy stuff and like can go home at the end of the night and just be like I am the best thing that ever happened to this world. That's one version. From
the reading and the under and the work that I've done trying to understand like a Mussolini or like um you know what I mean? I think there's a there's that late at night home alone laying in bed thinking about everything where there's that like creeping demon of insecurity Yes. that's like you're going to fail. It's all going to fall apart. Your whole mission's about to like collapse. and if you can't get everybody on board to believe you, you're dead. That to me is awesome, and I can find that as a character and as an actor. Um and it helped me in the most crazy that you see in like a movie like this, cuz this movie is so fun and so wild and so action-packed, um at the end of the day as a as an actor, I still need to ground myself in
something that feels authentic to me. So, I just put that in every day, like present full power. S- keep one secret. Keep a secret every day. Um here's one. I As much as I bragged about it, I cannot do my signature moves Mhm. that I know [clears throat] I should be able to do because of the psycho power. I don't have the ability to flex my biceps and squeeze somebody's head between them the way that I should be able to because I don't have the power.
Um and that can be terrifying. Hey, thanks for watching that clip of my conversation with David Dastmalchian, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. For more in-depth interviews with all of your favorite people, you're already in the right place, IGN.
