This past weekend the annual pop-culture convention, Wondercon, took place in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Fans from all over flocked to the convention center to take in all of their favorite movies, television shows and comic books and enjoy a weekend of all out nerdiness and fandoms. Hosted by the same group that puts on the world-wide famous San Diego Comic Con, Wondercon is one of those bigger and more famous conventions that should not be missed. During the whirlwind of a weekend, we were able to sit down with members of the cast of one of the most popular new shows on the CW Network, DC Legends of Tomorrow.
This new show, which is currently in the midst of their first season, takes characters from the popular CW shows The Flash and Arrow and unites them in an all new time-traveling adventure where they must join together as a team and try to save the future from a horrible evil. What makes this show so great is the combination of characters from the other shows and seeing them join together to face all new characters never seen before. Fans of DC Comics will recognize all of these characters and will be delighted to see some all new characters never before seen in the other shows.
The actors we were able to interview included Caity Lotz, who plays the Black Canary (and now in this new show the White Canary); Brandon Routh, who plays The Atom (and is also known for being Superman in cinema); Franz Drameh, who plays Firestorm; Ciara Renee, who plays HawkGirl; and lastly executive producer Marc Guggenheim. During this great interview we were able to get insight into some of the behind the scenes processes as well as what is coming up next for the episode this week and the future of this season.
Caity Lotz
Caity Lotz, who plays the dangerous assassin Sara Lance, was able to sit down with us first and talk about her dynamic character. We first asked her about her talent for doing her own stunts and her past work as a dancer and how that helped her in the show playing an assassin who does a lot of athletic work.
“I studied martial arts before I did acting and the dance background was ridiculously helpful, especially in film and TV. Memorizing in acting with another actor is like choreography in a dance, so dance was really helpful,” said Lotz. “I studied Filipino martial arts as well and in that you use a staff a lot which really helped when I went on the show and had to use a bo-staff.”
After hearing a bit about her athletic training we moved on to talk about her character and how it was to work with a whole new group of characters after departing from the characters she used to be with on Arrow.
“I think Sara is always kind of a lone wolf, even when she is with either team (on Arrow or DC Legends of Tomorrow). Not that she always wants to be in charge, but people telling her what to do is a no go. Even on Legends of Tomorrow when the writers will write in for her to call the character Rip Hunter, “Captain,” I’m like no, she’s not calling him Captain. I’ve changed dialogue too; I think that is a big part of Sara,” said Lotz.
One of the main questions we had for Lotz was about her character’s bisexuality on the show and how she thought that had an impact on viewers as well as what is next in terms of finding love for her character.
“This season has never really been about finding love for Sara, but it was fun to do the 1950s episode because of all of the social issues that they touched upon such as interracial marriage, blacks in the soda shop getting picked on by the jocks and Sara being a bisexual and saying the word “lesbian.” I loved the scene were Dr. Stein was saying how the 50s was so idyllic and then Sara and Jax (Franz Drameh) were like “Ya if you’re white and a man and straight; it really wasn’t that great for everybody else.”
Lastly, we asked Lotz if she were to have the ability to go anywhere in time which time period would she go to.
“I’d like to go to the 20s,” said Lotz. “I think that would be fun, the roaring 20s. I don’t know, I like the clothes. I’d go to Berlin in the 1920s, where it was a really eclectic art scene.”
Brandon Routh
Brandon Routh plays the lovable Ray Palmer, also known as The Atom, who got his start on the show Arrow and then moved on to DC Legends to still be the comedic relief that viewers all look forward too. We were able to sit down with Routh, who is just as charming as his on-screen character, and ask him about his experience on the show and his character. We first asked him about the last aired episode, in which his character and a few others get left behind in the 1950s after a time-traveling moment gone wrong, and whether or not that shattered Ray Palmer’s dreams of what being a team meant.
“No, I think he probably just thinks its a mistake...at first. He thinks very rationally about it at first, even though it is shocking. I think he has faith up to this point but as time progresses he gets a little bit more worried, even for him, which is what we will see in Thursday’s episode,” revealed Routh.
Since the show is predominantly about time travel we asked Routh whether we would see any other part of his character’s time line other than just the present during the rest of the season.
“We don’t quite get there but there is a little bit of a dip into the past with some of our characters, but we still haven’t dipped into mine yet. Some day.” said Routh.
One of the main qualities about Ray Palmer in the show is that he desperately wants to be known as a legend like the Arrow of the Flash. Our question for Routh was whether or not after all of this is done, if Ray Palmer will finally see himself on the same tier as Arrow or Flash in terms of being a hero.
“Well, I think at the end of the journey I think he will have a broader understanding of what it means to be a hero,” said Routh. “He won’t be so narrowly focused on competing with anybody. Really, it never was about people remembering The Atom, it was about really leaving a legacy of change, and making lives better for people, and securing safety and happiness for people, not just the selfish, egotistical thing.”
Ciara Renee
Ciara Renee’s character, Kendra (HawkGirl) was briefly introduced to us on The Flash before really making her big debut on DC Legends. Renee is really one of the new stars on this show and we were able to ask her some insightful questions on her character and the development of her character’s heroic abilities. We started off by asking Renee about how her character will try to control her ever present blood lust on the show after discovering her new powers as an immortal and as HawkGirl.
“I am not sure it is not quite blood lust, but more rage. It is kind of counter intuitive for her. It isn’t how she normally functions, so I think as soon as she is able to forgive herself and move on, that rage aspect will start to fade away,” reveals Renee.
We also wanted to know about her character’s partner in crime and eternal lover, Carter, (HawkMan) who was earlier killed in this season, and whether or not another reincarnation of him would ever come back and get in the way of her and Ray Palmer’s newly budding romance on the show.
“I think that would be a bit tragic for Ray,” laughed Renee, “Especially since this is such a new relationship. I think it may have even started as sort of a rebound for her in the most traumatic way possible. I think she is definitely trying to move forward, but seeing Carter again would definitely upset all of that I think.”
While we were on the topic of seeing the two immortal characters in their past lives, we asked whether it was a possibility for Kendra to run into herself at any point since they do time travel to different periods in time.
“I think that is definitely possible,” hinted Renee. “But as Rip Hunter says, we definitely try not to participate in things we have already participated in. We don’t want to cause a black hole or a vortex or anything like that.”
As for her character’s thoughts on being stuck in the 1950s as of the last episode Renee said, “One of the cool things about her (Kendra) is that she already lived in the 50s and she will probably really start to remember what it was like to live in the 50s and how to survive there. She is really one of the best people to be stuck there, or in any era really, because eventually she will remember everything.”
When asked about what she thought about the writers’ choice to address social issues and prejudices in the 1950s, Renee said “I thought it was a really brave choice of the writers to address those issues. I certainly would have said that we should touch on that, especially now with it being so socially relevant to the social climate in our country right now. It was really interesting to play that since I have definitely experienced some of those things when I was younger. It is important for viewers to see that especially because it did happen and still happens now.”
We also asked her about her talent as a singer, (she will be playing Esmeralda in the Broadway musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame) as well as an actress, and whether or not we would be able to see any of that talent on the show.
“Not this season unfortunately, but I keep crossing my fingers for it. I think it’d be really fun, especially on a time travels show. I really like jazz so what if we were able to go to the 1930s France, you know it’d be fun. We will see,” said Renee.
Franz Drameh
Franz Drameh plays one half of the character of Firestorm and is definitely one of the other breakout stars of this new series. Drameh sat down with us and was able to talk to us about what it is like working on set with all of the actors and his thoughts on his character.
Our first question was how he felt as finally being able to embrace his new character after he had a brief appearance on The Flash and what it was like now being one of the main centerpieces of this new show.
“It has been really nice exploring the character of Jax and really bring him to life. We really get to know who he is and his life so it is really cool,” said Drameh.
Since the character of Firestorm is two people melding into one, we asked Dramah how he felt always having to work with a partner (Victor Garber) in every scene or if he preferred the rare scene where he just had to worry about his individual character.
“I really love working with Victor. It is so fun. We literally spend all day just insulting each other, it is so fun. I make him take really weird selfies with me. I use loads of London slang that he doesn’t understand. We get on like a house on fire,” exclaimed Drameh. “Our characters start off really going at each other and we kind of learn to work together and we build this great relationship. It is a father-son kind of bond and towards the end. It is really nice.”
We then asked whether or not viewers of the show would soon be able to see into Jax’s past and what his life before he became Firestorm was like during the time travel scenes.
“We definitely explore Jax’s family life and his relationship with his parents. I believe episode 12 is a good one for Jax. There is some really lovely moments and it really explains why Jax is the way he is,” revealed Drameh.
During the last episode Jax is one of the characters that doesn’t get left behind in 1950s. We asked Drameh how his character feels about leaving partners behind in a time period they don’t belong in.
“We leave the three behind, and they are there for a while. I mean like years....Spoiler,” revealed Drameh. “So yeah, there is definitely a different dynamic when they come back, for sure. I am trying to word it so I don’t give away too much.”
Marc Guggenheim
Finally, we sat down with executive producer on the show Marc Guggenheim who has had experience working on all three CW shows, Arrow, The Flash and DC Legends of Tomorrow. We were able to get some insight on how the writers and producers of the show deal with writing the confusing world of time travel and what we can expect from the series.
One of the first questions we asked was if the time traveling ship could also travel through different dimensions and worlds rather than just time itself.
“We haven’t established yet. I think if we were to have it travel through dimensions we would have to make a story point out of it,” said Guggenheim. "It would feel weird to me to do a whole season and have Rip Hunter all of a sudden be like ‘oh yeah, the ship has this whole other ability we never told you about this whole time.’ If we had a good story reason to do it, then I don’t see why not.”
One of the main questions we asked was about the looming presence of the Time Masters on the show. We asked Guggenheim on whether or not the show would delve more into who those Time Masters were as an entity.
“They are like US Congress. They’ve got a job but they aren’t particularly interested in doing it. No, I’m joking...not really joking. In seriousness though, this back half of the season is going to deal a lot with the Time Masters,” revealed Guggenheim. “The first half of the season was about laying the foundation as far as the Time Masters were concerned. We did it very subtly. It all had a reason to it and you will see all of the puzzle pieces starting to come together in a very definitive way.”
When it comes to time travel it can all get very confusing. We asked Guggenheim how the writers keep track of all of the story lines in the writing room.
“Great question. We do have an number of story boards and diagrams and white boards. The people that are really sticklers for time travel have probably tuned out by now,” said Guggenheim. “To use the Doctor Who term, we have the most ‘timey-wimey’ episodes coming up. Episode 12 coming up is particularly ‘timey-wimey.’ Any person who watches any time travel movie or TV show knows that it never lines up perfectly. It’s impossible.”
Addressing some of the rumors that have been spreading around about each season having a completely all new cast, we asked Guggenheim to address these rumors.
“I think that rumors got started when a couple of critics got very enamoured with the idea of the show being like American Horror Story, where each season resets every year and we aren’t going to be like that,” said Guggenheim. “Each season is going to have its own identity and like with any show there will be new characters coming in and leaving, but the poster next year won’t look very different from the poster this year.”