Steve Agee Robyn Von Swank Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text [This story contains major spoilers for Peacemaker's season two premiere.] Peacemaker star Steve Agee has been by James Gunn's side since a random Sunday night in 2008. Of course, this was long before Gunn became the co-CEO of DC Studios and the writer-director of Superman (2025), The Suicide Squad (2021) and the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. At the time, Gunn had one feature film on his resumé, and he was the co-host of VH1's reality show, Scream Queens, alongside Agee's friend from the Saw franchise, Shawnee Smith. In time, Smith needed a plus-one for a Sunday dinner party of sorts that James' brother Sean Gunn was throwing, so she asked Agee to buffer. He then quickly fell in with the Gunn brothers and the other guests in attendance such as Michael Rooker and Nathan Fillion. Related Stories Movies Box Office Milestone: 'Superman' First Superhero Pic of Year to Fly Past $600 Million Globally TV 'Peacemaker' Breakout Freddie Stroma on Vigilante Recasting and Being Shirtless Next to John Cena Agee was and is something of a jack-of-all-trades. Similar to Gunn, he's worn a wide variety of hats as a writer, actor, musician and comedian, so it's easy to see why he clicked right away with Gunn's long-standing company of creative people. "At the end of the night, James was like, 'Hey, we do this every Sunday night. Feel free to come by anytime.' So I went back every single Sunday night by myself, and Shawnee never went back," Agee tells The Hollywood Reporter. Within a year or two, Agee appeared in Gunn's second feature film, Super, before accumulating more parts in Gunn-directed or Gunn-produced projects such as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Brightburn and The Suicide Squad. The latter became a turning point for Agee since Gunn got involved with Warners right before the pandemic-era streaming boom took place. Thus, Gunn created an HBO Max spinoff series for John Cena's villainous Squad character, Christopher Smith/Peacemaker. In turn, Agee's ARGUS techie character, John Economos, would serve a more substantial role. The offer for Peacemaker arrived in late 2020, and it functioned as the silver lining to Agee's devastating year. As he was filming The Sucide Squad in January 2020, his mother was diagnosed with leukemia. And upon wrapping Squad in March, he spent all his time with her in the hospital until the pandemic guidelines required them to separate. His mother would soon pass, and Agee hadn't had the opportunity to find a new place to live after relinquishing his apartment pre-Suicide Squad. Fortunately, his vast rolodex of friends came to his aid until Peacemaker got going, allowing him to crash at their various houses. "I was down in the dumps. I had never been more depressed and lost," Agee recalls. "I had nothing going on, but James wanted to make sure that everything was taken care of before he told me [about Peacemaker]. He didn't want to get my hopes up." Agee certainly never expected John Economos to become his calling card following The Suicide Squad. He also executed the physical performance for the Sylvester Stallone-voiced CG character of King Shark, and if he had a future in DC, he assumed it would be as one half of King Shark. "I thought I had more of a shot of continuing on as King Shark. John Economos was only a week's worth of work for me in total on a five-month shoot," Agee says. "Economos was kind of a flat character in the background of these scenes with Amanda Waller [Viola Davis], and there was really no development there. I didn't see that going anywhere at all." As Gunn is famous for doing, he took the fringe character of Economos and fleshed him out across Peacemaker season one's eight episodes, culminating in a heartbreaking monologue about why he dyes his beard. What began as a running gag evolved into the actor's finest moment on screen. Eight months later, Gunn accepted the role of co-CEO at DC Studios. Agee happened to be among the select few who was privy to the existence of this job offer before it became official in October 2022, and he strongly encouraged his friend to accept a role that seemed tailor-made for him. "We were outside on his porch [in Aspen], and I could tell he had something that he wanted to talk about, but he was literally so afraid to bring it up," Agee shares. "And then he was like, 'I'm going to tell you something. And I swear to God, you cannot tell anybody. If people find out about this, I'll know it was you, because, other than [co-CEO] Peter [Safran] and [wife] Jen [Holland], you are the only motherfucker that knows about this." With Peacemaker season two's long-awaited premiere, "The Ties That Grind," now released, the 11th Street Kids of Economos, Chris Smith/Peacemaker (Cena), Emilia Harcourt (Hol