Posted in: HBO, streaming, TV | Tagged: Chukwudi Iwuji, hbo max, james gunn, John Cena, murn, peacemaker, preview

Peacemaker: Chukwudi Iwuji on Murn's Origins; Offers S01 Finale Tease

As the first DCEU spinoff TV series from 2021's The Suicide Squad on HBO Max, Peacemaker has exceeded expectations every which way from star John Cena's layered turn as the title character, its non-stop action, comedy, and shocking twists. The one tasked to lead the ARGUS team with their clashing personalities is Clemson Murn, played by Chukwudi Iwuji, doing everything he can to keep its members alive and under the radar with seemingly futile results. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Iwuij opened up about his character, how he got involved with the James Gunn series, and his classical background. There are major spoilers from here on out.

The big secret behind Iwuji's Murn is that he's actually being controlled by a parasitic alien. While the alien retains Murn's own memories, the original mind is lost. "There's something very immediate about Murn," he said. "His delivery is very immediate, his presence is immediate, his flashes of temper are immediate, there's so much to play in the moment, which is the joy of being in a scene, that I never once thought of doing things in terms of a butterfly. Now, in the writing, he gets blown up in episode 3 and he still survives. You've got to question that, you know. [Laughs] But that's in the writing. I just didn't want to give any clues away." Murn is revealed as the lone resistance fighter who defies his own butterfly kind as they're staging an invasion by taking over their larger hosts to take over the planet as ARGUS investigates their food sources and motivations. "[Laughs] That's the world of James Gunn, really, and the world of this show," Iwuji said about Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and Economos (Steve Agee) discovering his true origin. "It's a different mindset. Usually when you're writing a piece of fiction, the big drama, the big reveal is that there are aliens, but we start this show already in that world, that universe, where we know aliens exist. So I guess different people react in different ways to things."

Iwuji recalled when he was cast on the HBO Max series. "One afternoon, I received an email from my agent with these mysterious sides, only three pages as it happened," he said. "Remember episode 1 when we first meet Peacemaker, we come in to his trailer? That was it, but they hid some names and stuff to keep it secret. I remember looking at the breakdown for the character and the description for the character was so not me. I went, oh, they're just going to get Lance Reddick or something. [Laughs] But I started reading the material, and in those three pages there was so much comedy, so much humor, and, more importantly for me, James had done this thing which good writers do, which is direct the actor through dialog. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it and I thought, this is just too much fun not to do, even if I never get it. So my wife and I set up a camera, and we sent the first take we did, and, as it turns out, I wasn't what James was looking for, but he decided that he wanted what I did, and that's how I became involved with the whole thing."

To say it's a shift from the Royal Shakespeare Company to the zany superhero series, would be an understatement. "[Laughs] Absolutely! My first day, I had to do that scene where we're hiding the cameras in the trees, with Steve Agee as it happens, and I am not a DIY guy at all," Iwuji said. "I don't own a drill. It was a nightmare. You have a crew of a hundred people watching you, it was freezing cold, you're up a ladder, working an electric drill. I think at one point I set it to reverse instead of forward. It was a nightmare. I was pretty sure they were going to fire me. I was like, there won't be a car waiting for me at the end of the day. But, that aside, the only time I was like, 'I'm a little bit out of my depth' was when the improvising would happen. Because John Cena's a master at that, he'll just keep going, and James will keep the camera going, and John was just improvising, and Steve Agee himself does stand-up. I'd [think], I hope nobody is expecting me to match these guys because, as you said, my background is Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Ibsen. You know, we don't improvise those guys. [Laughs]"

As consistent with the series, Iwuji promises a big season finale. "I would say a lot has to be resolved in just two more episodes and a lot is resolved in two more episodes with total chaos, hilarity, surprise," he said. "And of course what James Gunn does really well is surprise you with the amount of heart he can put in the middle of chaos. It's very explosive. The last two episodes are extremely explosive and hilarious, but you will not be disappointed with the humanity he somehow manages to instill in the middle of all that." For more on Iwuji talking about his upcoming role in the Marvel side in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and his time on Doctor Who, you can go to EW.

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