David Dastmalchian has joined the cast of writer-director Matt Ruskin’s Boston Strangler movie, opposite Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon, Alessandro Nivola, and Chris Cooper. That comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which says the film will star Knightley as real-life reporter Loretta McLaughlin, one of the journalists who broke the story of the infamous serial killer who murdered at least 11 women in the mid-’60s.
The THR story doesn’t say who Coon, Nivola, and Cooper might be playing, but it does say that Dastmalchian at least has a “pivotal, undisclosed role.” Hmm… what could that mean? It’s David Dastmalchian, it’s a movie about the Boston Strangler, and he has a “pivotal” role… you don’t think… no… it can’t be… could it? Could he be playing the Boston Strangler?!
Let’s look at the evidence: He’s David Dastmalchian. He plays villains and creeps and creepy villains (we know this, he knows this, we’re not trying to offend him). Also, Albert DeSalvo—the man who once admitted to the murders, got killed in prison, and then was linked to one of the murders through DNA evidence years later—looks just like David Dastmalchian. Well, they both have dark hair and those eyebrows, but that’s close enough for Hollywood.
We could be wrong, certainly, which would just play into the “but is he the real killer?” angle of this true crime-y stuff, but it makes sense. After all, Dastmalchian was one of Joker’s goons in The Dark Knight, he was a weird scientist guy in Blade Runner 2049, he was… some kind of bad person in Dune, he was the Polka-Dot Man in The Suicide Squad, and he was even one of Ant-Man’s friends in the Ant-Man movies (imagine that, being friends with a man who is also an ant).
Would playing the Boston Strangle really be outside of his wheelhouse at all? THR says filming is going to start next month, so it might be a while before we know, but… c’mon, we know.