The Suicide Squad did more than introduce superhero fans to the DC Extended Universe's newest faces. The James Gunn film also paved the way for the DCEU's first interconnected television series. Instead of following Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, one of the more established DCEU characters on the team, or Idris Elba's Bloodsport, who's arguably the main protagonist of The Suicide Squad, HBO Max's new series will be all about John Cena's Peacemaker. Along with the titular character, Peacemaker is bringing back some of Amanda Waller's subordinates from The Suicide Squad to aid Peacemaker's newest mission.

One such subordinate is John Economos, portrayed in The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker by Steve Agee, who also did the motion capture work for King Shark. Agee is no stranger to working with Peacemaker show creator James Gunn. In an exclusive interview with CBR, Agee discussed the appeal of Peacemaker, what it's like working with Gunn, and how this project gave him a chance to stretch his acting skills.

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john economos

CBR: For those not yet familiar with The Suicide Squad or Peacemaker, who is your character, John? What appealed to you about this role in the first place?

Steve Agee: The first thing that appealed to me was it was a job. I'm not a comic book nerd, especially on the level of James [Gunn], so I didn't know anything about The Suicide Squad. I knew they had made a movie about it. I knew the basics, what the layman would know about The Suicide Squad, which was it's villains working together. That's really all I knew when James told me he wanted me to be this character, John Economos. I'm like, "Cool." I'd never heard of him. I thought he was somebody James made up to kind of help the story along, and then he's like, "No, he's an actual character in the comic books." It's not a well-known character,  so I went online and looked, and there was very little about him other than the fact that he was the warden of Belle Reve prison, which is up there with Arkham Asylum. It's where they keep all the bad guys. I thought that was cool. I immediately went and bought a bunch of the John Ostrander Suicide Squad books, and really, the main thing I learned about John Economos was that he was divorced a bunch of times. He disagrees a lot with Waller. That's it.

James had a lot of freedom to work with him, and he also had John Ostrander's blessing. We had John Ostrander on the set for a day or two, and I got to meet him, and James introduced us and he was like, "You look like the real Economos." That's when we realized that he based this character on an actual person that he knew. I think they were either business partners: I know they were friends, but they had some kind of business dealings together. I was pretty stoked when he said you look a lot like the real John Economos.

I knew nothing about it going into it, other than the very limited info I could find online. When I got the script, I took away through reading it that he's kind of a moral compass. He definitely disagrees with a lot of Waller's practices and tactics. You see that going through the film when she threatens Idris' daughter. He is really not cool with that. That's really all I knew going into Economos. When we did the series, we got to really play with the character a lot more.

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Speaking about that character, in a world full of these metahumans, gods, and vigilantes, what's it like being one of the more human and grounded characters thrown into this world of superheroes and villains?

It's amazing. As someone who doesn't know a lot about superheroes and comic books, I love all the movies. I love them all. I watch them all. I'm a big fan, so I'm happy just to be a part of it. I know as somebody who's six foot six, over 300 pounds, I'm not going to be playing a metahuman or someone who would normally have a gymnast's body, but I love the character.

He's funny, and I love the world. I love the Peacemaker world that we did with the series. It doesn't come across as a superhero TV show. I've been saying it, and I've read a couple of reviews that say it, it's more like a workplace comedy. It's gritty and it takes place in a world where Superman exists and Batman, and we reference them. You hear about them often, but Peacemaker isn't a meta-human either. He's more along the lines of an asshole version of Batman. He's a guy who's good with guns and very determined to accomplish his missions.

As you're saying, this is connected to the DCEU. What was it like learning that this would be connected to that main universe and that they were bringing back your character and Peacemaker as the first DCEU television show?

It was really exciting. James, I think with the pandemic and him having a lot of time at home by himself not working, he had a lot of time to figure out what he wanted to do. I'm glad he figured out that he wanted to do something again with Cena, and that he worked Economos into that world. It makes sense, especially the Peacemaker part of it because, in the movie, Peacemaker is one-note. He's an asshole from start to end. We don't see him grow like we see Idris grow or Harley. He's a piece of shit from point A to point B, and this gives James a chance to really show everyone who watched that why he's a piece of shit, and they really do service that. You really do find out why he sucks, and he has an arc. We all have arcs. It's great.

I've never had an arc in anything. I'm a character actor. I'm the guy who walks in at the very end of a scene eating a doughnut and says something funny. I never have an arc, so this was very exciting for me. We get to explore all these characters over eight episodes. That's way more than you're allowed to do in two hours.

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john economos peacemaker

Speaking about the characters, your character is one of Peacemaker's overseers, so what was it like working along John Cena to bring this complicated dynamic to life?

John Cena has quickly become one of my favorite people. Doing motion capture for King Shark in The Suicide Squad, I was able to spend some time with John. Otherwise, if I had just been playing Economos, I really wouldn't have gotten to meet John at all. Just being around him on set on The Suicide Squad was great, and then spending seven months with him up in Vancouver was really awesome.

I come from a comedy background. He comes from a wrestling background, and he's one of the funniest people I've ever worked with, and I've worked with legendary funny people. He would be able to hold his own next to any of those people I've worked with because he's really funny. He's an awesome actor. He's a very giving, nice person, and he loves to have fun on set. There was never a day where I dreaded going to work. I looked forward to it. The biggest bummer when we were working up in Vancouver was when I would have a week off, and it was a pandemic, and we didn't have vaccines yet up in Canada, so I didn't get to see my friends or work with these people.

One of my favorite moments shooting the series was in the first episode where we're all in the restaurant, and he shows up in his weird costume, and he's got an eagle in his car. We shot that one night, and we were all sitting around a dinner table in this restaurant, and for most of us, it was our first time sitting at a table with other people in over a year. It was all fake, but it was still amazing to be sitting there with five people that I really, really, really liked, and that ended up being a whole series as well. Every time we were together, we had fun.

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Touching on how you did the motion capture for King Shark in The Suicide Squad, I'm curious, what was it like bringing such a fantastical and absurd character to life physically.

It was awesome. I'm lucky in that I'm 6"-almost 6" 7' tall. I'm over 300 pounds, so it made sense to use me as the motion capture. James likes to work with his friends. I'd worked with him before, and he was like, "I need somebody on set who can be funny, and who I like working with. I've worked with you in the past, and I know this would work out well." It was amazing.

By the time I showed up to Atlanta to start shooting it, they had amazing character designs, so I got to see what he looked like. There are some iterations of King Shark where he's 15 feet tall, and I think that would have been a little more complicated to do in motion capture, but King Shark is not much taller than I am. He's just a lot bulkier, which is why I had to wear this big chest piece and headpiece, just so the actors would know not to stand too close, or where to look and stuff like that, but it was really fun. It was one of the most fun gigs I've had was doing the motion capture for King Shark.

As you've mentioned, you've worked with James Gunn so many times. What about him as a director and writer makes you want to keep coming back to his projects?

He's got a really dark sense of humor. We bonded at a wine and cheese party one night in his brother's house. That's where I met him, and we immediately bonded. There's a luxury to working with a director who has also written the material that you're doing because by the time you get on the set, he's done enough drafts, and he storyboards himself, so he knows exactly what he needs. He's got it pictured in his head by the time we're shooting. There are some times where we'll shoot something, and we'll do one take, and he'll ask the cameraman, "Did you get it? Are you good with that?" And they'll be like, "Yeah." He's like, "We're moving on." And they'll say, "Are you sure? You don't want me to try it?" He's like, "No, that's exactly the way I pictured it. That's how I want it to be." So that's a definite luxury.

James writes dialogue really well. Sometimes you'll work with source material that's written unnaturally. You read it, and you're like, "No one would say this," or they would phrase this differently. I've worked with people where you instinctually rephrase it. You're saying the same thing, but you rephrase it, and they're like, "No, can you just stick with the way I wrote it?" You're like, "Oh, my God." James writes in a way that makes sense, which also makes it easier for the actors because it's easier to memorize. So he's one of my favorite people to work with because he  gets it all the way around.

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King Shark and Ratcatcher II from The Suicide Squad

What are you most excited about for our audiences in regard to Peacemaker?

Oh my god. There's stuff I wish I could talk about with people, but nobody's seen it yet. I haven't even seen all the episodes. I've only seen the first three. You've probably seen more than I have. I'm excited because I get to do action stuff. I get to shoot guns. I get in fights and, as I said, I'm a character actor. That's new for me, and it's all really cool.

I want people to see that, but also there's stuff that is, like the finale that we shot -- Episode 8 is so incredible. It was so fun to shoot. Also, I've known James for over 10 years, and I've never seen him happier than when we were shooting the finale. He was just running around laughing, and it was a night shoot. It was three in the morning, and he was running around like a crazy person going, "I can't believe we're doing this. I can't believe they're letting me do this." So I really can't wait for people to see the ending of it, like the last episode's incredible, but there's also some amazing, other stuff, like the opening credits. That's crazy. The opening credits are very James Gunn. I don't think this is going to disappoint anybody.

Witness John Economos getting some epic battle time in Peacemaker's premiere, debuting on HBO Max Thursday, Jan. 13.

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