Best of 2022 (Behind the Scenes): How Bob Fosse and Alan Tudyk influenced Peacemaker 's dance intro

"Do ya really wanna, do ya really wanna taste it?" The first time Norwegian hair metal band Wig Wam's opening lyrics to their song "Do Ya Wanna Taste It" exploded out from the TV screen during Peacemaker's opening credits sequence, it felt like a fever dream come to life. John Cena's R-rated DC superhero was dressed in his full comic book costume, complete with a shiny silver face mask/helmet combo, standing under a spotlight and performing stiff, robotic dance moves, all with a deadpan expression. A few seconds later, he was joined by more cast members as neon blue and pink lights suddenly turned on, illuminating the chrome warehouse-like set, and for the next minute, the entire cast full of superheroes, supervillains, and civilians alike all joined in on the frenetic dance — and their serious facial expressions never cracked. It was the most random, cheesy, and yet totally perfect opening credits sequence for the HBO Max comic book show that managed to capture the extremely unique tone of the series, and for all eight episodes, that dance made it impossible to hit the "skip intro" button.

HBO Max

Ever since Peacemaker premiered in January, its opening title sequence has been praised as one of the best of not just the past year but also of all time. The idea for it came straight from the "horribly beautiful mind" of creator James Gunn, who wrote the dance into the very first script for the series. He even picked out the song himself, but from there, he knew he needed an expert to bring the scene to life.

That's when choreographer Charissa Barton came into the picture — while interviewing for the job, she pitched ideas for the dance that were exactly what Gunn and the other producers were looking for, so she was hired quickly and given all eight episode scripts to read to get a lock on the tone and feel of the show. After that, Gunn set her free to choreograph the dance however she wanted. "That really opened me up to think outside of the box so I got to play with a lot things, some that didn't work and we honed in on what did work," Barton tells EW.

After listening to "Do You Wanna Taste It" over and over again — "I probably heard it about 100 times," Barton says with a laugh — she got to work. "I set up a camera in my apartment and for two to three hours just improvised," she says. "Then I went through all the footage and pulled what I liked best and pieced it together, and I sent that video to James and producers and they replied, 'This is great, keep going.'"

In those early days of choreographing the dance, Barton pulled a lot from legendary actor/dancer Bob Fosse. "I resonate with [his] work and rewatched a ton of his stuff which you can definitely see some influences of it in the arms," she says. She would also search "weird dances" on YouTube to give herself some more inspiration, because the only description Gunn wrote in the script was "Peacemaker does a weird dance" and, she adds with another laugh, "People have different ideas of what 'weird' means."

While piecing together which moves would end up making the final version of the dance, Barton enlisted a very special helper: her husband, actor Alan Tudyk. As luck would have it, he was also filming a project in Vancouver at the same time she was hired to choreograph the Peacemaker credits, and he played a very important role in helping her visualize how actors who weren't trained dancers would perform the dance moves.

"My husband Alan Tudyk is an actor and not a trained dancer and he was great to have around to measure what might be too challenging for non-trained dancers and what might push to the very edge of it," Barton says. "He made himself available to me to test out some things and he was a very willing participant. And then I worked with professional dancers to help solidify what the sequences were and taught the actors and then shot it."

But teaching Cena and the rest of the cast turned out to be a much more complex process than she expected, as they all had different levels of training and skills and needed to be taught in different ways. "Everybody was nervous when they walked into the room on that first day," Barton says. "I wanted to make sure I started each rehearsal with letting everyone know I'm not one of those a--hole choreographers who expects perfection from non-trained dancers and to trust the process and to trust me that I would break it down for them so it became very attainable. That eased some of the nerves and tension right off the top."

She was impressed with how quickly cast members Danielle Brooks and Jen Holland picked up the dance moves, but had to be more patient with some of the other actors like Cena and Robert Patrick. "Robert would get really frustrated, but he has such a huge heart and while he's got a tough exterior he's actually a big softie," Barton says. "Our first rehearsal, I had to approach teaching him a little bit differently because I had to give him a little more general big brushstrokes. And then in the second rehearsal, I'd start to get a little bit more specific and then another rehearsal to just run it and run it and run it and run it and then by the time he showed up on set to film it, he was nailing that hip thrust and doing the thing. But all of them were really willing to just trust and go for it."

Once all the actors learned the dance, it was time to rehearse it on set. But throughout the development of the credits sequence, Barton and Gunn started to second guess the location of where it would be shot. "We originally started working in the headquarters space, and the first walk through to see if it was big enough to accommodate a dance, it was empty and they were just starting to put in the set, and it was a little tight," she says. "In the end, James made the really brilliant call to put it on a stage instead. So I had to modify [the dance] to make it fit in the new space. But a lot of what we already had got better when we had more space on the stage to let it breathe."

It was a little more than halfway through the season when everyone finally came together for one big dress rehearsal for the dance. "We had one dress rehearsal the day before because it was hard to get everyone in the room at the same time since everyone was shooting most days of the week and some Sundays," Baron says. "The dress rehearsal was the only time we had to get everyone in the same room at the same time. And then we shot in one day. It was fast. In hindsight, yep, it should have been two, but we actually finished on time and got everything that we needed. It was tight but it worked out."

Barton had such a great time watching all the actors performing the dance while not breaking their serious facial expressions throughout filming, but despite all her prep work to make sure it went smoothly, production still ran into one big problem that had to be solved on the spot.

"At one point, Peacemaker slides in from the side of the stage, and if you've ever tried sliding across the floor, it's actually not easy," Barton says with a laugh. "We had a special floor put down and special shoes that allowed him to slide in, and it was sticking even though we had tried it [in advance]. Humidity can change on a given day, I don't know exactly what it was, but the stunt team was helping us with that and it got a little bit tricky. It slowed us down but in the end, it worked great. He nails that slide and just glides right across the floor. But that's the kind of thing you can't prepare for."

Barton was able to exhale once they finished shooting. And watching it onscreen once it was all edited together gave her a sense of real pride for what they all accomplished. But now that Peacemaker has been renewed for a second season, Barton's already brainstorming how to level up the credits with an all-new dance.

"As far as I know, [I'm returning to choreograph again]," she says. "I was fortunate enough to attend James and Jen's wedding and we spoke about it a little bit and he kind of planted some seeds in my brain that were very exciting. As it stands right now, I'm very excited about season 2. It's been fun to think about how we're going to top that and surprise people."

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