One of the most prolific performers in the DCU is Sean Gunn. The actor, who rose to prominence playing the lovable Kirk Gleason in Gilmore Girls, has become a pivotal part of the franchise. Prior to DC Studios being established, he portrayed Calendar Man and Weasel in 2021's The Suicide Squad, which has since somewhat become retroactive DCU canon. As James Gunn and Peter Safran's DC Universe began to take shape, Sean Gunn was cast as Maxwell Lord, the morally ambiguous businessman who later on in the comics took a dark turn, and was ultimately murdered by Wonder Woman.
The actor returned as Weasel for HBO Max's Creature Commandos, which gave the character a prominent role and fleshed out his backstory. He also played another one of the show's leads, the Nazi-hunting machine known as G.I. Robot. Following that, he made his debut as Maxwell Lord in Superman, and resurfaced as the complex character in the first episode of Peacemaker's second season. With that, Gunn currently holds three major roles in the franchise. Given his pivotal part in this new universe, DC and James Gunn took to social media to post a tribute to him.
Gunn and DC's official Instagram shared a video—a mash-up of clips from Gilmore Girls (specifically, from his memorable "a film by kirk" scene), Creature Commandos, and The Suicide Squad:
The post was captioned with, "Blessing your timeline because we feel like it."
Portraying characters as eclectic as G.I. Robot, Maxwell Lord and Weasel can be a challenge, particularly when they're all part of the same franchise. Gunn, however, has stated he is up for the task. Speaking to Screen Rant in 2024, the actor was asked what he was excited to explore about his characters, and how he approached his performances so that they felt different from one another. The actor stated the following:
"It's true that they're all in the DC Universe, so there's that sort of extra element. As an actor, I'm well equipped to play a variety of different types of characters. And even me, as a character actor, I've done so many different weird types of things. So it's like, in addition to those three characters that you mentioned, I have, like, three different independent movies that I'm doing starting next week, and doing over the course of the next few months. So, there's a whole bunch of characters that I'm trying to navigate."
Speaking specifically about G.I. Robot and Weasel, Gunn explained that the two antiheroes were vastly different from one another, and it was thus easy to draw clear distinctions between the two: "[For] DC in particular, one of the things that makes it easy is that the Creatuer Commandos characters are so... well, right now, they're animated for Creature Commandos, but even if they were live-action [...] they'd be CG characters. G.I. Robot is also, obviously a robot. So, they're more sort of... Weasel, yes, he grunts and things, but it's mostly about the movement. G.I. is almost completely about the voice, so they're a little bit different from one another. And they're in the kind of far-flung reaches of the character spectrum in the universe."
Gunn then compared his two animated characters to Maxwell Lord, calling him more grounded than the Commandos members: "All I can say is that that character is a little bit more grounded—a lot more grounded, obviously, as a human being. And so, that's a character that I would tackle in a more traditional way."
Sean Gunn can be seen as Maxwell Lord in Superman and Peacemaker Season 2, both streaming on HBO Max. Creature Commandos is also available on the platform.
What's your favorite DCU role from Sean Gunn? Where would you like to see Maxwell Lord appear next? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!