Rafael Motamayor talks to the cast of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow about new character pairings, magic in season 4 and more…
The cast and crew of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow participated in roundtable interviews at SDCC 2018. Flickering Myth’s own Rafael Motamayor was there to talk to Matt Ryan (John Constantine), Courtney Ford (Nora Darhk), Tala Ashe (Zari Tomaz), Dominic Purcell (Mick Rory), Caity Lotz (Sara Lance), and Brandon Routh (Ray Palmer).
They’ve battled pirates, Vikings, a demon and a giant furby-God called Beebo. Now the Legends of Tomorrow will have to face something new in the form of John Constantine and the introduction of magic to the Arrowverse.
First up was the question of how the events of the last season would affect the Legends. After having given Nora the time stone and freeing Mallus, Ray is conflicted on his decision, even if Mallus was defeated. “Ray is happy that things turned out ok,” said Brandon Routh. “But he starts to question his gamble on Nora being a good person and whether that was a good idea or not.” Courtney Ford says that the loss of her character’s father, Damien Darhk, deeply impacts Nora. “She will have to find out who she really is without the presence of Mallus or her father. She hasn’t had any normal experiences that we take for granted, so how is she going to interact with people? Will she find a job?”
One of the most exciting parts about the third season of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow was the introduction of John Constantine after the cancellation of the NBC show Constantine, which marks a happy victory both for the fans, and for Matt Ryan. “It feels great. It’s been four years since the show was cancelled and now I get to go around in the trenchcoat again and that’s great.” Ryan also talked about exploring relationships we haven’t seen from Constantine before. “I get to explore whole new dynamics. It’s not Zatanna, it’s not Deadman, it’s not Swamp Thing, all these characters we normally associate with Constantine. We are finding out how to explore them, and that’s probably the most exciting thing for me coming into this universe.”
The cast seems to agree that John Constantine changes the dynamic of the group in the fourth season. “The dynamic between Constantine and Rory is hysterical,” said Dominic Purcell. “I’ve got to read a few scripts ahead of time, and their scenes are fantastic.” While Caity Lotz says he’s the devil on Sara’s shoulders. “She’s got this new hold on life and a relationship and she starts thinking that she may be able to let people in,” said Lotz. “And then you have Constantine who’s like ‘I know who you really are. You are just like me’ and I see him putting in jeopardy Sara’s newfound joy in life.”
With Constantine comes a whole bunch of problems for the Legends, particularly in form of magical refugees coming into the world. Tala Ashe seems to think this will affect Zari by reminder her of her own background. “Zari has become part of the fabric of the team after the timeloop episode,” said Ashe. “But she’s still grappling with the future that she’s from, leaving her brother behind and the intolerance from that place. The magical refugees will parallel the metas from her future, so I think she’s going to butt heads with Constantine quite a bit.”
A lot has been said of how Brandon Routh’s character, Ray Palmer, has changed from his introduction in Arrow. Routh seems to think they made him more impulsive, but that the change was something he was already pushing. “The truth is that Ray on Arrow was envisioned one way, and I swam upstream because I wanted to make him not so much Tony Stark,” said Routh. “I wanted him to be a kinder presence. So naturally that fed into the comedic abilities of Ray and the comedy gold that could be mined out of a goody-two-shoes character, a boy scout character so they just kept building and morphing Ray into this version. And I think it’s great, because it’s true to a lot of my growing up and I like the nerdy boy scout kid who wants to be part of the team. And also the science aspect is something I hear a lot from parents who say Ray is a positive role model.” Caity Lotz agrees and says the nerdy boy scout is needed in today’s TV landscape. “It’s such a rise of the anti-hero on TV,” said Lotz. “And if I had a kid I would want him to watch and want to be Ray, rather than Heat Wave or Constantine. So I think it’s good to have a character like Ray.”
As to which character they would like to have more screen time with, Routh had a few ideas. “I have some fun stuff with Zari at the beginning of the season, and there’s some cool scenes with Mick. But Caity and I haven’t really done a lot of stuff together, so I would like Ray to have some interactions with Sara, and I would like to work with John Constantine. I think the science/magic thing would be a good mix.” What about Sara? Caity Lotz has a clear answer in mind. “Now that we have so many girls on the cast, I’d like to get some missions where it’s all ladies. I think there’s a lot of great bromances on our show, and we need some galpals. There should be a word for it. A girlmance.”
Rafael Motamayor is a freelance journalist and movie geek based in Norway. You can follow him on Twitter.
