HBO Max has just announced the identities of the two most recent additions to the cast of Peacemaker, the upcoming television spinoff of DC’s Suicide Squad film franchise, via Deadline. Elizabeth Faith Ludlow (The Walking Dead, Another Life) and Rizwan Manji (Mr. Robot, Outsourced) are reportedly playing the recurring characters of Keeya and Jamil, respectively, although the roles those particular characters occupy in the show’s overall story remain under wraps, Deadline reports.
Ludlow and Manji join Peacemaker‘s previously announced supporting cast members Danielle Brooks (Orange is the New Black, Close Enough), Chris Conrad (Patriot, The Promotion), Jennifer Holland (Sun Records, Brightburn) and Robert Patrick (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The X-Files), along with former sixteen-time WWE Champion John Cena (Bumblebee, Blockers), who plays the show’s titular violent vigilante hero, as reported by Entertainment Weekly.
Peacemaker‘s showrunner James Gunn (Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Super) revealed on his Twitter that he and Ludlow actually met on the set of the Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 when she played the reptilian Easik Mother. However, he allegedly did not recognize her during her Peacemaker audition because his only prior interactions with her were when she was in full creature makeup.
In December 2020, Manji and the character he played on the much-beloved Canadian sitcom Schitt’s Creek, the opportunistic Ray Butani, became the center of online critical discourse surrounding Asian characters with comically exaggerated accents, as reported by The Toronto Star. Ray’s accent was allegedly creative choice Manji made on his own, according to The Toronto Star. Manji explained that while he does not want to discourage the Schitt’s Creek audience from thinking critically about the program, he suggests they look past the accent and ask the big questions, like why they don’t get an opportunity to learn more about Ray’s inner life: “If you want to criticize something, do that… We need to have three-dimensional characters,” via The Toronto Star.
Peacemaker is currently in production, but Cena’s take on the character will allegedly debut via Gunn’s upcoming action blockbuster The Suicide Squad, Variety reports. The film arrives on HBO Max on August 6, the same day of its theatrical release, according to Deadline.