David Dastmalchian’s career was stuck. He’d been plucked “out of theatrical obscurity,” as he calls it, after being cast as one of the Joker’s loyal thugs in The Dark Knight , the mega-successful second film in director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. But after that film wrapped, Dastmalchian’s film and TV opportunities in Chicago — where he was an experienced stage actor — remained what they’d usually been: tied to a xenophobic understanding of his last name.

“It was mostly limited to, I don’t know how to describe it better than, quote-unquote, ethnic characters,’” says Dastmalchian, whose father was Iranian American. “It was like, a terrorist on 24 or a cab driver who’s supposed to have a funny accent. These are real descriptions. They used to put it in the fucking script.”

The

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