Interviews
SDCC Interview: Flash EP Andrew Kreisberg On Villains, Crossovers & More
Interview with Flash executive producer Andrew Kreisberg from Comic-Con 2014.
Who’s ready for another interview from Comic-Con?
This evening we’d like to share with you our video interview with Andrew Kreisberg from the Flash press room at this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego. Here’s the video, and some highlights are discussed below:
– On villains: “There’s going to be a lot of brand new villains. We’re actually going to have one villain from Arrow come over in one of the early episodes,” Kreisberg says, surely alluding to the Clock King, who will appear in Flash Episode 7. “What’s so much fun about Flash is – on Arrow, we’ve generally steered toward the non-powered villains, and even when we had some of the powered villains, we de-powered them, or we fit them into our world, like the Royal Flush Gang. But now doing the Flash, it’s opened up. The Flash has the best villains of any comic book character, so we’re really excited to be exploring all of them, but also having the opportunity to revisit some of the Arrow’s nemeses, and bring them over.”
– Team Flash is making the kind of show that they, too, would enjoy if they weren’t working on it. “We always do what we want to see. I joke if I’m not on the stage, I’d be out in the audience, so for us, so much of the fun of getting to do a spin-off and getting to do these superheroes [is] that they do exist in the same world, and we do get to see them interact. The big crossovers, like having Oliver and Felicity and Dig coming over to Flash, but even just the little things like where [there’s] a news screen on a Flash episode, [and] the newscaster says ‘in other news, Ray Palmer’s takeover of Queen Consolidated…’
We’re reminding people that they are in the same world, and not in a way that, if you’re not watching one of the shows, you’re going to be like ‘what the hell is going on,’ but if you are watching both shows, it’s like ‘oh, that’s so nice.’ I’m such a big Doctor Who fan, and at one time when they had Sarah Jane Adventures and Doctor Who and Torchwood going on at the same time, whenever there’d be a little mention, you’d go ‘Aww!’ And it just rewarded you for being like an uber-fan, and we do really like that,” Kreisberg says.
– Character evolution: “Oliver in the pilot of Arrow was as much the Green Arrow as he will ever be, at least expertise-wise. 
That show is a study about his changing morality, as somebody who’s lost their humanity and getting it back. For Barry, he’s just a normal guy who suddenly has super powers, and just because he won once in the pilot, doesn’t mean he’s always going to win, especially in some of these early episodes. He comes up against some challenges, and some of them are because he gets his @$$ kicked. Some of them are emotional. Some of them are psychological. Some of them are his own morality, and how it’s changing. So, a lot of it is suddenly like ‘be careful what you wish for.’ We always say Barry had the heart of a hero, but now he has the legs of a hero, too, and that comes with its own challenges. It’s much more of a superhero coming of age story in the beginning,” Andrew promises.
– Villains: “Again, aside from Batman and Spider-Man, Flash has, hands down, the best villains, and especially with all of the work that so many talented comic book writers have done, especially Geoff [Johns]. The villains are, in some ways, just as interesting as the hero, and not just because they’re flamboyant, but because they have their own lives, and getting to dip into them… it’s no secret Green Arrow doesn’t have the world’s greatest villains. After Merlyn and Vertigo, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. [With Flash] there’s this endless supply of villains that we’re going to get to use. 
One of the fun things about this show, because sometimes they have not-the-greatest names, like Rainbow Raider, or even Captain Cold… Cisco is sort of the fanboy on the show, he’s constantly coming up with the names for people. So even as he’s doing it, he’ll pitch a name, and they’ll be like ‘that’s really lame.’ But it’s a way to name-check some of these villains that I think the fans will find fun,” he says.
– One of those big name villains will be Captain Cold, played by Wentworth Miller in Episode 4 “Going Rogue.” “We’re so excited about Wentworth,” Andrew says. “Captain Cold… he’s the Joker. He’s Lex Luthor, for the Flash, and to get somebody like Wentworth… we seem to always be the beneficiaries of great timing, and Wentworth has – since he finished Prison Break, he’s been screenwriting, and he wrote Stoker, and he’s just now wanting to dip his toe back into acting, and it was perfect timing. Greg [Berlanti] met with him, and he really liked the character, and I think he liked being the bad guy. We’re super excited to have him.”
– Who else is guest starring? “Bill Sadler is playing Simon Stagg from the comic books in Episode 2, and we have Emily Bett Rickards – Felicity – who is coming over in the same Captain Cold episode, and that’s as much as I can say right now,” Kreisberg teases. As for what Felicity is doing there, “she’s going to end up helping him out on a case. Even if The Flash hadn’t gone, Grant and Barry made such a huge impact on [Arrow], and it wasn’t something that we dropped. 
If you kept watching the show, there was constant mentions of Barry being in a coma, and Caitlin and Cisco came over, so forgetting the Flash, there’s unfinished business with Barry and Felicity, and I think it would have been a disservice to all of the people were supporting “Baricity” – and as much as it clearly had meant to Felicity over the back half of the season, to not address that… in some ways it was more important to have Felicity and Barry cross over than it was to do bigger crossovers with, like, The Arrow and Flash, because I feel like that’s stuff that the fans are going to want to find out what happened there, and what does that mean, and what does it mean moving forward. But what’s really great about her coming over is, in addition to the fun of it, part of the emotional structure of that episode is it’s the first time Barry and his team are having conflicts about how to go about what they’re doing, and Felicity is able to both help Barry and Caitlin, Cisco, and Wells, because she knows what it’s like to work on a team, and not always have a team that works functionally, and how important it is to be there for each other. So, it’s great in every way. You get the Barry and Felicity of it, but it’s not just a gimmick. She’s really there to help Team Flash take their next step.”
Come talk about this interview on our Flash forum, and PLEASE be sure to follow us on Twitter – @FlashTVNews!
Interviews
The Flash: Speaking With Tom Cavanagh Before Tonight’s Finale
Tom Cavanagh discusses his return as the Reverse Flash in the series finale of the Flash airing March 24
Tom Cavanagh was a part of The Flash from the start, first playing Harrison Wells-but-actually-the Reverse Flash, and then giving us a myriad of Wells throughout the multiverse. He’s also proven himself to be a fantastic director, helming multiple episodes of The Flash as well as fellow CW superhero staple Superman & Lois. Tonight, he’s back in front of the camera, playing Barry’s arch enemy once again.
FlashTVNews spoke with Tom Cavanagh in the days leading to tonight’s finale, and here are some highlights of that conversation:
How did it feel to be back? “I think the emotions are probably very different for somebody like myself or Carlos Valdes who decided to leave after Season 6; myself with the knowledge that [I have] this parachute of the fact that I play the Reverse Flash and he’s gonna come in every four or five months and blow up Central City and try and kill the Flash. It was a tremendous situation for me, because that’s exactly how it played out. I got to come back, and see my friends, and put on the suit, and enjoy that. It was just a grand circumstance anytime out to see the crew and the cast and put on that suit.”
On the importance of bringing the Reverse Flash back for the series finale: “It was understood that when we got to the series finale, that we have to include the Joker to the Batman; or in this case, Reverse Flash to The Flash.”
Would he like to play Reverse Flash again? “Reverse Flash, for me, was just a joy to play, as an antagonist or arch-enemy. There’s charisma to that character, and I delighted in. I would suit up again in a heartbeat.”
Cavanagh has pitch for a return on a possible Reverse Flash spinoff project. “Here’s my pitch: What if Reverse Flash, with all his villainy, fell for a civilian and then suddenly that complicated his agenda? Where would he go with his paramour, and how would it affect him? Would he then be able to carry through on his designs of destroying Barry? The reason we didn’t do that on The Flash was because you’d need to call that show Reverse Flash. We’ve got The Flash, which I wholeheartedly support. That being said, I think there’s room in the multiverse now that The Flash is over for us to explore that. And so, that’s my pitch for a Reverse Flash spinoff.”
Is Eobard afraid of any of the other speedsters? “Heck no, and that will be readily apparent in the finale.”
Was it fun to play Eobard insulting Eddie and Hunter Zolomon in the finale? “Poor Teddy Sears. Poor Rick Cosnett. Grand humans, all. And then, they roll on camera and it’s just, like, me taking shots. Teddy would quote them back to me a month later and I’d ask ‘who said that?’ ‘You said it!’ It’s so fast and furious, that I can’t keep track sometimes. I have to say, there’s one descriptor for those guys: It’s ‘tolerant’.”
Any final words for the fans who have followed the series for nine years? “I think it’s great that you bring that up, because often times, when a show has run a long time, a lot of the concentration is on the people who are the face of the show on camera, but off camera is the audience. They are the reason we were even given these nine years. It’s never lost on me. I remember [Superman & Lois and former Flash showrunner] Todd Helbing saying this: ‘These people invite us into their homes for an hour a week, and it is such a privilege and a responsibility. We want to let them know that we don’t take it lightly.’ That would be the message that I would like to basically parrot. Certainly, we’re grateful for the audience showing up week after week, which gave us those nine years. And even though I’m sure we didn’t always succeed story wise, it’s important for us to let the audience know that it was not from lack of trying. We understood that they were the reason we were there, and we were always doing our best to try to tell stories that they would enjoy, and keep coming back.”
The Flash series finale airs tonight on The CW.
Interviews
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Interviews
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