05/05/2026
Actor, filmmaker, and comic book creator David Dastmalchian ('Dune', 'Late Night with the Devil', 'Murderbot') joins 5AM StoryTalk to dig into his bold new graphic novel THROUGH, the relationship between creativity, horror, and his mental health, and finding the courage to let your stories – and your life – remain beautifully unresolved.
ON THE ITINERARY:
▪ THE MONSTER WITHIN: How the horror genre provides a safe place to confront not just the “dark outside the window,” but the terrifying parts of ourselves we aren’t comfortable talking about. 👹
▪ THE CREATIVE VACUUM: Why the artist’s best work is done when seeking to overcome fear rather than being driven by it, moving from a state of hyper-vigilance to conscious presence. 👁️
▪ THE TRUTH ABOUT VULNERABILITY: A raw discussion on addiction, su***de attempts, and the “implosion” of self-control – and how these experiences become the clay for David’s meaningful art. 🩹
▪ BREAKING ‘THROUGH’: The creative and emotional origins of David’s new graphic novel Through from Z2 Comics and why it’s one of the most personal things he’s ever worked on. 📖
▪ RADICAL HOPE: How normalizing conversations about the morbid can help us face the “monstrous“ within a capitalist culture that often buries the value of human wellbeing. 🫀
👉 Watch/Listen to the conversation at the links in the first comment:
