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Street Fighter led David Dastmalchian to study cults for his M. Bison role
Playing M. Bison is a big responsibility, so David Dastmalchian made sure he studied up before getting into character
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David Dastmalchian has had a wonderfully varied career. He’s best known for his weird roles like Polka-Dot Man in The Suicide Squad or Mr. 3 in Netflix’s One Piece, but he is no stranger to dramatic and grounded roles either. This makes him the perfect actor to embody iconic Street Fighter villain M. Bison in the upcoming movie. To dive deeper into the role, Dastmalchian studied the techniques and skills of real-life cult leaders to understand why so many people follow the obviously villainous Bison.
“I’m curious about films where there are these villainous leaders that have endless armies of foot soldiers willing to throw themselves into certain death to defend them,” David Dastmalchian explained in a recent interview with Empire. “I was like, ‘How do you achieve that authentically? How do you become the person that all of these people are going to follow into the fire?’”
The answer to that question came from some of the evillest people that have lived. “We started studying cult leadership and historical figures that were able to use terror and intimidation, but also cunning, charm, and seduction to make these major movements happen. People like Idi Amin, Jim Jones, and ~Mussolini. We dove in with a very serious approach. People might think, ‘Oh, it’s just a video game bad guy. It’s just a big boss,’ and I was like, ‘No, it’s something much deeper than that.’”
Dastmalchian already has big boots to fill as M. Bison, with the most famous portrayal of the character on film coming from the beautifully unhinged and over-the-top performance of Raul Julia. Giving the character some seriously creepy inspiration could be what he needs to stand out in the massive cast of characters in the upcoming Street Fighter movie.
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