The new Apple TV+ sci-fi series “Murderbot” stars Alexander Skarsgård as the titular cyborg, who’s able to hack his system and go rogue. Unfortunately, free will does little for a mildly outdated security construct whose only desires in life are to watch bad TV and be left in peace — especially since the self-appointed Murderbot understands all too well that no one can ever find out that it has free will in the first place.
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Peace, of course, is not on the cards when you’re the titular character on what may turn out to be one of the best sci-fi shows on Apple TV+. Murderbot soon becomes the chosen SecUnit of a scientist expedition that’s heading toward a mystery planet, which contains more than its share of dangers. It doesn’t help Murderbot that it doesn’t fully comprehend or appreciate humanity … and even less helpful is the fact that the group soon discovers its sentience, and it has to actually communicate with them.
The expedition member who proves to be the undoing of Murderbot’s anonymity is Gurathin, a melancholic man with some handy technological talents of his own. Due to his sceptical nature and, let’s face it, basic observation skills, Gurathin almost immediately becomes suspicious of Murderbot and is instrumental in finding out that it has gone rogue. Understandably, this means that Murderbot and Gurathin don’t exactly see eye to eye. In order to match Skarsgård’s offbeat performance with a similarly nervous energy, the show turned to a true expert of this particular acting style when casting Gurathin: David Dastmalchian.
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David Dastmalchian can play the awkward loner type to perfection
As he told /Film in an exclusive 2023 interview, David Dastmalchian is living the nerd’s dream. This isn’t difficult to believe, given the prolific actor’s history of apparent omnipresence in genre movies and shows. After a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance on an episode of the CBS comedy-drama “Early Edition” in 2000, he started truly advancing his screen acting career in a little 2008 movie called “The Dark Knight,” playing one of the Joker’s (Heath Ledger) henchmen. Since then, his range as a character actor has kept him in constant demand.
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Dastmalchian is familiar from various superhero franchises. Apart from “The Dark Knight,” he’s played the supervillain Abra Kadabra on The CW’s “The Flash,” Polka-Dot Man in James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad,” Dwight Pollard in Fox’s “Gotham,” and no less than two different Marvel Cinematic Universe roles: Scott Lang’s (Paul Rudd) crew member Kurt in the first two “Ant-Man” movies, and a Quantum Realm freedom fighter called Veb in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” He has also voiced key antagonist Calendar Man in the two-part “Batman: The Long Halloween” animated film, as well as multiple other DC characters in other animated projects.
Outside the superhero genre, Dastmalchian’s career is no less impressive. He played the hapless casino pit boss Warrick in David Lynch’s 2017 revival of “Twin Peaks,” a marauder in the Netflix horror “Bird Box,” William Borden in “Oppenheimer,” and Wojchek in “The Last Voyage of the Demeter.” In 2024, he gained even more prominence in the horror genre thanks to his leading role in “Late Night with the Devil.” He’s also been known to work with Denis Villeneuve, appearing as Coco in “Blade Runner 2047” and the Harkonnen mentat Piter de Vries in “Dune.” On “Murderbot,” Dastmalchian brings his talents to yet another elaborately created, outlandish universe — and Skarsgård’s titular SecUnit will no doubt be in trouble whenever Gurathin appears on the screen.
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