VIOLA DAVIS: My first encounter with David Ayer was at his house.
And he said... (LAUGHING)
He was like, "You know, I don't wanna just do a superhero movie, man.
"I want them to be human beings, you know.
"I want it to be rooted in some truth."
DAVID AYER: I worked really hard to create a grounded film,
so you could feel like you could drive down the street,
or look down an alley and see Deadshot doing his business.
Then we pass Harley Quinn, you know, in another car with Joker.
Which may not be a good thing.
(BOTH LAUGH)
AD EVVALE AKIN N UOYE-AG BAJ E: In this very dark, gritty world,
that could almost be reality,
it doesn't seem as surreal as some of those other movies you see.
I have a vision in my head, and my job is to explain and translate
these things I see in my mind
into things that can be sewn, built, painted.
A great collaborator was Oliver Scholl, the set designer.
He pulled me in directions I didn't want to go in,
I pulled him in directions he didn't wanna go.
And the end result is spectacular.
Superhero stories are inherently fantastic.
But the approach was very realistic.
Sometimes even downplaying elements
where normally you would have gone, like, a bit more shiny.
To say, "No, we're not gonna go that way,
"we're gonna stay very grounded with it."
GRIGGS: Welcome to Belle Reve, special security barracks.
I'm here to assist you in any way.
RICHARD SUCKLE: Belle Reve was a design that Oliver and David came up with.
And of course, it's set in the swamp.
But there's so many different ways that you can execute that.
BOOMERANG: Hey! You feel that?
Let me out of here right now!
David had friends that worked in prison, and got the reference material from them.
Down to the layout of the security table, and what would be on the screens.
Really the man knew everything.
SUCKLE: And that kind of authenticity,
that's a real testament to David's process
in wanting to make sure there really isn't any detail
that's not too important.
'Cause they're all important.
MAN: We're going live with Task Force X. Pull 'em.
David uses this phrase a lot, "Chasing the real."
And from the beginning, he said, "I don't want them in
"supervillain, superhero suits."
He was very interested in,
"How do we find that person in the reality of our world,
”and then heighten it and distill the iconography
"of the comic book characters into this reality?"
Won't fit anymore?
CHARLES ROVEN: Kate Hawley, the costume designer...
She had a lot of different potential examples from the different characters,
because of the comic.
And it was really important for David to give them
a sense of grittiness.
So, they had that sense that you could find them out on the street.
I'm beautiful.
Yeah, you are.
MARGOT ROBBIE: There are so many intricate little nuances
that people have spent a really long time working on,
and thinking about, so I appreciate the time they take,
and all of it's incorporated into her costume.
Her hair, her make-up, her props.
They're an incredible team.
AYER: One of the guys that turned out to be a real treasure for me,
in the journey of putting this movie together,
is a gentleman by the name of Rob Coutts,
who's a Toronto tattoo artist.
It was simply going to be,
"Hey, help me come up with some tattoo ideas for these characters."
But in working with him, and these conversations with him,
that the characters sort of grew and evolved.
ROB COUTTS: A big part of what I do is just listening to people.
And I always search for keywords, whether it's a specific area,
or a time period
or a color palette that he's really keen on giving
very specific keywords.
But if it needs tweaking, he'll tell you specifically.
Or he'll just get his hands dirty, and he'll just do it.
He'll make a little sketch, 'cause he knows what he likes,
and he knows what he doesn't like.
Each tattoo on everybody has its own specific story.
You know, there's Enchantress,
who has these very specific tribal tattoos,
and hex signs and ancient magic runes from grimoires and things like that.
Everything with its own specific sort of language and history.
JAY HERNANDEZ: I mean, the process was kind of interesting.
It started off with a little bit of tattoos, and they started growing.
It was like everywhere. My entire body was covered with tattoos.
And they're in sort of that process of
trying to find the complete look of the character.
I was like, "Yeah.
”The more I don't look like me, the better it's gonna be."
Hey, what's that crap on your face? Does it wash off?
I'm so scared people are gonna go get
"ROTTEN" tattooed on their cheek now. (LAUGHS)
WILL SMITH: Ooh! Yeah, girl. You got the gloves.
JOEL KINNAMAN: Come on, now.
We all ended up, like, giving each other tattoos.
- You want it traced or freehand? -(LAUGHING)
- WOMAN: Freehand. - Freehand.
- Here goes. - SMITH: Here we go. Here we go.
- You want me to use your camera? - I'm nervous.
KIN NAMAN: It was like Harley's tattoo parlor.
-(LAUGHS) - Like that size?
- Like that. - Sure.
(ALL LAUGHING)
MAN: All right. That's good enough. ROBBIE: Yeah?
- Yeah. - That's good.
(ALL CHEERING)
Yeah, yeah.
- I think with the hands, adding... - Adding more?
Yeah. Like, just some random surfaces or something.
- What is this stuff? - Look at that one.
Oh, yeah, that's... That's...
- Yeah, it's like, good to meet you. -(LAUGHING)
ED ULBRICH: The EAs, or these Eyes of the Adversary,
are these beings, but what do these things look like?
We were really in the beginning, kind of fumbling around.
You'd throw stuff up on the wall, and see what sticks.
One day, you know, David Ayer came in.
He was like, "God, I had this insane dream last night."
And he took a marker, and he went to the whiteboard,
and he started drawing.
And he drew the craziest-looking thing.
It was this kind of humanoid figure,
but it was a head covered with eyeballs.
And he was like, "That's what they look like."
That drawing, after trying literally dozens of other designs...
That's what we ended up going with.
AYERI Action!
Cut!
(SPEAKING ENGLISH)
If David Ayer's gonna do a single comic book film, Suicide Squad is it,
because he's got that military background.
He has the knowledge of how it would work.
And he brings that side of it.
How a mission would actually lay out.
So, all that stuff feels very, very real and authentic,
because it is authentic.
These guys are gonna have SIGs. These guys are gonna have Glocks.
AYER: A couple of buddies of mine who are, you know, former Navy SEALS,
came in to help me out with the show,
and to train the actors in weapons manipulations and small arms tactics,
so that when people are doing things on camera,
they're doing them correctly.
A lot of movies these days,
action sequences can just be filled with explosions,
just for an explosion's sake.
But in this movie, everything is more surgical, like a spec ops unit,
in how that spec ops unit would conduct their actions on an objective.
We're definitely outmanned.
And we have to navigate that,
knowing we're gonna be running out of rounds really quick.
So, it's about surviving that.
It's about being resourceful.
And I think a lot of people will appreciate that.
You never lose ground, you're always on the offense,
you're always attacking.
SMITH: David makes sure the set stays populated
with experts and everything that you could possibly have a question about.
There were things that David did together with each department head
that clearly defined the characters.
And I think one of the strongest elements of the film
is how defined the characters are.
And he has a very interesting way of doing his cast rehearsals.
SMITH: There was a huge character prep for this movie.
You know, we all got in a room together,
and we worked, probably, for about a month.
It was really diving in, and understanding these characters.
KINNAMAN: We all had to rehearse, improvise.
We'd use the script, and we'd go away from the script.
And this process is team-building, in a way.
Because everybody has to be vulnerable in front of the rest of the group.
I need you to go over and kiss him on the cheek.
(KISSES)
I knew you'd come through.
And then at the end of all these, like, ups and downs
of the process you go through,
you end up just having this, like, insane trust.
I 'd do anything. I 'd go in any direction in a scene that he told me to.
I have a trust for him that I have never found in any other work relationship.
When you see this guy coming, you start backing up...
AYER: You can't rehearse too much,
because no matter how much you rehearse, it's still gonna be a surprise on set.
But that's where the magic comes from.
And that's where you then get the freedom to start ad-libbing,
and adding the humor and adding the life.
Because now they're in character.
- SOLDIER: Get them hands up! - Hey, I'm cooperating.
This is me being cool.
RICK: Hold your fire.
Hold your fire.
The importance David gave that, again, it's just unheard of.
And that's why I think this movie has heart.
Because he cares about the characters.
- Let's shoot it. - MAN: Let's do it.
All right.
(INAUDIBLE DIALOGUE)
All your work, how it comes together into the frame that the camera sees,
it's really high quality work.
It's really spectacular what you guys have clone.
(ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING)
(LAUGHTER)
SMITH: You don't like that angle. The angle sucks, right?
- You wanted it cut a little more... - KINNAMAN: (LAUGHS) No, no. It's perfect.
It's just an odd angle choice.
- That's terrible. -(ALL LAUGH)