During a recent ‘Mike and Tom Eat Snacks‘ podcast, Tom Cavanagh, who plays Dr. Harrison Wells on ‘The Flash,’ has opened up as to why exactly he feels Grant Gustin should have been cast as the big screen version of ‘The Flash.’ While not in a position to make the call of who plays which characters in DC’s cinematic universe, it is interesting to hear him chime in on the matter. Sadly, it is clearly too late to allow Gustin to play Barry Allen but that doesn’t mean many fans aren’t upset that DC is wasting the perfect opportunity of tying their cinematic and televised universe together in a way that Marvel fails at pulling off.
The fun part is that since DC has long had multiple worlds in their comics and has now introduced these worlds on the small screen, we could feasibly have Gustin playing The Flash in the movie and not be the same Barry that is on television.
According to Cavanagh:
“It was either Variety or Vanity Fair that wrote an article that said [DC] needs to watch what they’re doing on TV, because the TV’s working and some of the other darker stuff isn’t working.
Here’s what I’ll say about him not being The Flash. The first thing is that for Zack Snyder to say ‘that’s not really the universe that we’re building,’ it’s excruciating for an actor. Because you’re like, ‘Uh, what about acting?’ He’s a clean-cut guy and winning, yes, because he’s acting that. He’s not Barry Allen. He’s Grant Gustin. He created that thing. If you want [your Flash] to have long hair and be a slacker, believe me, Grant can play that. He makes it look easy and makes everything think that’s what he is because he’s an incredibly skilled talent. That’s why he has that job. That’s why people like the show.
If Zack Snyder were to read him for [The Flash], he would be shocked. It’s crazy for a big-time Hollywood director to say ‘that’s not the universe.’ It’s a huge misstep on his part. If you’re a director, and you’re worth your oats, then you should be able to, given an actor with talent, mold him into what you want, and Grant could do that.”
While he does feel Gustin should have a shot, he isn’t sold that he should take the shot. The movie continuity will be an entirely different kind of commitment for the actor and he told Gustin that:
“The second thing is that the movies are tremendous. They’re building all of us up. The difficult thing for the movies is that we’ve had two years in the case of The Flash to win you over and tell a story. They have two hours. That’s not easy to do. So that’s why you see so many missteps. It’s very hard to get that right. And I said to Grant when this was announced: ‘Look, that’s years from now. Do you just want to just be The Flash? You have the ability to be in a Spielberg war movie next.’ And that will happen for him.
For his first big movie role to be The Flash, I don’t know if that’s the best thing for him. because you’re asking him to do the same thing he’s had years to do, to do the exact same thing in two hours, and it’s in different hands creatively. It’s tricky.”
While I can see both sides of the coin here I think that they should have at least given Gustin a reading had he wanted it. The worst case scenario is that everyone’s time would have been wasted while the best would be the actor all set and knowing the material to boot. At least, a variation of it.
Do you think that DC should have tied their televised and cinematic universes together? Would casting the same actor in multiple roles have been confusing or made sense with their being different universes out there? Share your thoughts below!
You can listen to the entire Podcast below:
Source: Nerdist
Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!
