David Dastmalchian Knows His Street Fighter Performance Has To Live Up To One Of Cinema’s Fan-Favorite Villains

Over 30 years after the last iconic villain got a fan-favorite depiction, 2026’s Street Fighter is putting David Dastmalchian to the test as M. Bison.

Penned by Marvel Cinematic Universe veteran Dalan Musson and helmed by Bad Trip‘s Kitao Sakurai, the upcoming film serves as an adaptation of the Capcom fighting game classic of the same name. Its story will be set in 1993, with Ryu and Ken, estranged friends in the film, finding themselves recruited for the next World Warrior Tournament by Chun-Li. However, as they prepare to fight each other and the other contestants, Street Fighter also sees them stumble upon a deeper conspiracy behind the tournament.

While being interviewed by ScreenRant‘s Ash Crossan on the red carpet of the Saturn Awards, David Dastmalchian offered some insight into the Street Fighter reboot. In addition to confirming that filming wrapped in November, the star praised Kitao Sakurai for his approach to the material, expressing “I fell in love” with the direction during production and will “follow that guy for the rest of my days to the end of the earth“:

David Dastmalchian: The world that he created, the energy, the atmosphere that he manifested was so special. And the cast, I just love them. There was only one person in that entire group — and it’s a big group — that I knew going into the experience, which was my friend Orville Peck, and we ended up getting to have some very fun stuff together.

Careful not to share anything too specific about the new film, Dastmalchian did confess it was “terrifying” taking on the role of M. Bison for Street Fighter, primarily given the movie is “bring[ing] to life something that millions of people have invested so much of their lives into caring about.” Assuring he and the rest of the team “wanted to honor that” devoted fanbase, he went on to compare his time as the fan-favorite villain with that of some of his stage work:

David Dastmalchian: I’ve been doing theater, thankfully, for longer than I ever have been on camera. And so I remember getting to go and step into the shoes of Tom Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie, or an iconic Shakespeare character, or a famous Sam Shepard role. And I remember that terrifying pressure of, like, how many people have seen this already done? What is the idea in their mind for this character? So you have to try and — we’ll see!

Interestingly, Dastmalchian is actually the fourth star to step into M. Bison’s shoes for a live-action project, though Raúl Juliá’s performance remains the most memorable of the bunch. Also marking his last role prior to dying from a stroke in 1994, Juliá was largely seen as the only good element of the widely panned first Street Fighter movie, as his over-the-top performance and campy one-liners proved a perfect match for the iconic villain.

However, while Dastmalchian’s performance will inarguably find itself compared to Juliá’s going into the new Street Fighter‘s release on October 16, he does at least have the benefit of the performers playing M. Bison in the years between being forgotten or panned. The 2009 reboot, The Legend of Chun-Li, saw Tulsa King‘s Neal McDonough take on the role, and be swiftly dismissed by fans for how different he was from the games, while Silvio Simac’s very brief appearance as the villain in the Machinima-produced Resurrection went largely overlooked.

And while he may be terrified for how fans of the franchise will receive his performance, the sole teaser trailer released for Street Fighter thus far has already sparked widespread excitement from said viewers. Clearly inspired by both the games and classic martial arts movies, Sakurai looks to have brought the over-the-top energy many expect from the property, giving the film as a whole an edge over previous live-action adaptations.

This could, in turn, carry over into Dastmalchian’s performance as M. Bison for Street Fighter. It seems likely Sakurai is just as aware of the continued love for Juliá’s turn as the fan-favorite villain, and wanted his star to deliver something that lived up both to the original, as well as the games. Plus, with Dastmalchian already having found acclaim with everything from quieter turns in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune to such energetic characters as Kurt in the Ant-Man films, he certainly has the range to deliver.