Will Smith has praised 'Suicide Squad' director David Ayer for taking the comic book movie "seriously".

Will Smith

Will Smith

Smith portrays Deadshot in the Warner Bros. motion picture about the DC Comics characters and says the filmmaker "focused" on the supervillains as "real" people and admired his attention to detail.

He said: "David was one of the most focused acting directors I've ever worked with. He is so focused on performance and it was a pleasure to see someone go into that much character detail on a comic book movie. He took it very seriously and I think what he gave it is a really fantastic hybrid, you have all the big giant elements but at the centre of it you had these real people. These characters that have actual real problems. I'm excited to see how people react to it."

Will's character leads the group of imprisoned criminals, who are called upon by the government to carry out dangerous black ops missions in exchange for their freedom.

But Deadshot is a deadly marksman and "serial killer" and the star was fascinated by what drove him.

Explaining how he interpreted Deadshot's motives, he told 'Entertainment Tonight': "Here's the thing that's crazy. Everybody who gets out of the bed in the morning, there is a certain amount of discomfort they have and they set out on their day and do the things that they think will remove their discomfort. So a serial killer just does it in an extreme space."

Will is joined in 'Suicide Squad' by Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Jared Leto as The Joker, Cara Delevingne as Enchantress, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, Jay Hernandez as El Diablo, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Killer Croc and Ben Affleck as Batman.

The blockbuster is due for release in August 2015.