DC Studios‘ Max adult animated show Creature Commandos took fans new and old by surprise. Not only was its first season yet another marvelous show to add to the comic book juggernaut’s repertoire of phenomenal series, it also served as a harbinger for what the future of DC Studios will look like under James Gunn’s guiding hands. It certainly didn’t hurt that it had all the flair, humor, heart, and sex appeal that, until now, was unheard-of for a DC project.
Much like The Suicide Squad (Gunn’s version), Creature Commandos sees a weird assortment of DC oddballs tasked with completing deadly missions fit for a monster. Key among its cast of rejects are Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), the Bride (Indira Varma), GI Robot (Sean Gunn), Weasel (also Sean Gunn), Doctor Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk), Dr. Nina Mazursky (Zoe Chao), Frankenstein (David Harbour), and Circe (Anya Chalotra).
While many of the characters above reveal themselves to be more than they initially appear as a force for good throughout the show, Princess Ilana Rostovic proves herself to be the quite the opposite. In tandem with the show’s season finale, we spoke with Princess Ilana actor Maria Bakalova to ask her whether those fluttering eyelashes and Disney Princess front were genuine—or if she was just playing with the audience’s sympathies.
This interview has been edited for brevity.
Isaiah Colbert, io9: This isn’t your first time working on a James Gunn comic book project. Your first was in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 as the talking space dog, Cosmo. What drew you to joining another Gunn work?
Maria Bakalova: It’s James. I’m just a huge admirer of everything he’s doing. He’s such a master storyteller [in] the way he builds characters, the way he builds stories, [and] the way he tells stories is exceptional. It’s extraordinary.
You can always find his signature because of the humor, the love within these characters, and the idea of finding your place in life somehow and finding people that you can recognize yourself. You can find your chosen family to a degree. You can find friends and feel like you belong somewhere, which I feel we, as human beings, are always born with this feeling of “I want to belong somewhere. I want to be seen by somebody. I want to be understood by someone.” We see that with Creature Commandos. We saw that with Guardians of the Galaxy.
All of these projects have these misfits, monstrous creatures that somehow get united by the idea that they’re outsiders of the world and they don’t fit anywhere. Yet, they can be the greatest heroes at the end, and you can find yourself falling in love with them, rooting for them, wanting them to be successful in their mission. Even though I’m a little bit biased here [and] I don’t want them to kill my princess, let’s say she’s also part of the creature commandos team, because I don’t wanna end up in the prison as well.
io9: Creature Commandos is filled with a cast of characters who aren’t what they seem on first blush, including Ilana. Throughout the show, Ilana rubber-bands from being a Disney Princess-type figure to a cold and plotting villainess. How did you balance those two disparate tones between her character?
Bakalova: Ilana is a character that I haven’t really played before. I’ve gotten to work on a lot of interesting projects [that were] very different to each other, but I haven’t played a villain before. I haven’t played somebody that is using manipulation to get what they wanted. To sacrifice their dignity and humanity to achieve a goal of power and control over society. It’s interesting.
I’m always curious how people end up in this place and how they transition from just having this as a thought to actually starting to take action on it. She’s a complex woman. She can be seen as innocent and fragile and someone who really needs protection. But she is not as silly as she plays it to be and is not as fragile as she wants people to think she is.
Even though she reveals a little bit in front of Rick, she’s like, “I’m a woman, and I get what I want. I know that I’m capable of dealing with a lot of stuff. I don’t need a boy. I want a man.” It’s a bit of a glimpse that maybe she is not exactly who they think she is. She wants to play with her charm, and she wants to play with her femininity. She wants to play with the idea [that] she is not dangerous, she is in danger—when she’s actually the biggest danger of them all.
I did get to play something similar when I was trying to convince people that my character is a real human being back in 2020 with Borat [Subsequent Moviefilm]. Sometimes, you just have to let people believe what they want to believe, and I think that’s her goal as well. She just lets Rick and the creatures believe that they need to protect her. So that’s why she plays it like, “Okay, I need protection, just don’t stay [in] my way.”
Later, we reveal that, especially when she speaks her language, she is a completely different human being. She’s a monster. She has some terrible ideas for the future. But yeah, she’s an interesting character to play.
io9: You mentioned Ilana striking up a relationship with Rick Flag—a nonprofessional relationship—that leads to the hilarious scene where Doctor Phosphorous covers for them being intimate. James Gunn shared the clip of you kissing the back of your hand to make that noise on his social media. Was that a scene that required an intimacy coordinator, or was it simply going in the booth and performing as many takes as necessary to make it work?
Bakalova: No. As much as I do think you need to be provided an intimacy coordinator if you need one, for this specific scene, at the end of the day, I personally didn’t need it. If I needed somebody to be there with me, I could have always asked for it. It’s always an open conversation with James and with everybody behind DC.
But what James does pretty well is using humor all the time. Yeah, it’s animation for adults, but it’s done with a lot of humor. It’s not that serious. Even when we look at the scene itself, We look at the people in front of the door, listening to them being so angry and violent. And it’s like, “How long is this going to last? What is even happening?” It’s not like a romantic scene. It’s not like Pretty Woman. It’s a scene about two characters that somehow use, let’s say, passion to distract themselves from the real danger and the real problem. And it’s funny. It’s hilarious.
They’re not supposed to be doing that, but they’re doing that. Rick is fully aware that’s not his job there, but he’s doing it. Ilana is aware that she should not be doing that because she might expose herself, but she’s doing it. And it’s weird. And it’s funny. And it’s strange.
It’s been fun to have fun with it because Creature Commandos is a great show. It’s a very layered show rich with characters, places, and music. It’s beautifully edited, but it’s also a lot of fun. It’s not that heavy and pointing a finger [saying] “This is wrong and this is right.” It’s a fun show. Dark but fun. I didn’t need an intimacy coordinator. I don’t know about Frank [Grillo]. Maybe—if he needed one—he would have had one, but we just had a lot of fun doing it.
io9: Speaking of darker moments, in a future sequence from Circe, we see Ilana take over the world and kill a pantheon of DC heroes, including Peacemaker and the Justice League’s Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman. Which member of the Justice League do you think Ilana would have been the most merciless against and why?
Bakalova: Oof! Maybe If I knew that the Bride is going to kill me, I would have been the most vicious against her. That’s my biggest enemy here because I can pretty much trick everybody else, but the Bride is my biggest problem.
io9: Throughout the show, Ilana’s status as a villain is played vaguely, given the runaround the Creature Commandos go through regarding whether Circe’s visions were correct. This all wasn’t helped by Ilana endearing herself to characters like Flag and Weasel. Was Ilana’s affection for them genuine, or was it a facade?
Bakalova: I think it’s a little bit of a facade. Maybe with Weasel, [it’s] not that much of a facade. But to be completely honest, you just have to play the game. If she wants to succeed [in] her goal, she’s just putting on a mask that [pretending] she’s so fun, joyful, and enjoys the company of them. It’s so fake at the end of the day. She has a bigger mission. She has domination of the world. If she has to pretend that she likes them so much, she’s gonna like them.
Maybe, when we’re not on her, she’s kicking Weasel and throwing him away when Flag is not around. Maybe there is somebody else that she can have fun with. I don’t really buy that she has empathy for them.
io9: Despite your character being dead at the end of Creature Commandos, are there other comic book roles you’d love to take on?
Bakalova: Who knows? I’m going to keep this for myself for now, but definitely. I do want to play a few more comic book roles.
All seven episodes of Creature Commandos are streaming on Max. Season two is on the way.
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