One Peacemaker Character's Obsession Comes From James Gunn Himself

It's pretty common for creatives to take elements of their own lives or personalities and give them to the characters they write in some way, and writer/director/producer James Gunn gave one of the characters on his HBO Max series "Peacemaker" a delightful obsession that he has himself. On the Official Peacemaker Podcast, Gunn revealed that the fixation Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) has on crows is actually his own obsession, and he might be even more obsessed than the show's sweetly twisted antihero/sidekick. 

In the "Peacemaker" season 2 episode "Another Rick Up My Sleeve," Vigilante asks his hungover friends in the 11th Street Kids if they want to hear some crow facts after a long night of partying, and they don't seem all that keen on hearing about the fascinating lives of crows. On the podcast, Gunn lights up and starts sharing crow facts the moment it's brought up, bringing bemused "oh here we go" reactions from his wife Jennifer Holland, who plays Emilia Harcourt, and long-time friend Steve Agee, who plays John Economos. 

It turns out we had it totally wrong all along, folks, and James Gunn really, really loves birds. The only animal he's on the record as loving more are dogs, really, as he turned his own rescue dog, Ozu, into the beloved furry Kryptonian nightmare Krypto in "Superman" and reportedly kept getting distracted by the dog that played Cosmo in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3." Who knows? Maybe one day we'll get a really cool crow character in the DC Universe.

I had the opportunity to speak with Agee via Zoom about the series, and when I jokingly asked if he would like to hear some crow facts, he shared just how much Gunn loves crows: 

"So the newest podcast, I guess, or the last podcast, James just starts going off on crow facts. Usually if you see him bring something up in a script, it's something that he's pretty passionate about."

On the podcast, Gunn is pretty effusive in his love of corvids, saying "I like crows even more than Vigilante does" and then proceeding to list off some of the cool things crows can do, like remembering people's faces, making tools, and thinking several steps ahead logically. Crows are actually supremely cool birds with surprising intellect, but seeing Gunn go full fanboy for his feathered friends is a treat because it's so much like Vigilante. Maybe Stroma got the idea for that part of the performance directly from Gunn, because the love of crow facts is so very pure. Stroma does killer work playing the character as innocent despite being murder-happy, and the crow facts are just another layer of that weird, layered performance. 

New episodes of "Peacemaker" premiere Thursdays on HBO Max.