AS a child in Norfolk, Virginia, actor Grant Gustin had an all-consuming obsession with a certain DC Comics superhero—just not the one he’s now playing in The Flash, which premiered on Tuesday on the CW.
“I went everywhere in Superman pajamas I had amped up with red rain boots and red Fruit of the Loom underwear I wore on the outside,” Gustin said during a recent phone interview. “That lasted for a couple of years. I had baby sitters quit because they didn’t want to be seen in public with me.”
Although his passion for the Man of Steel hasn’t subsided—he even had the words “Superman, I love him” tattooed on his arm a few years ago—he’s developing a rival fondness for the fastest man alive since bringing him to the screen on episodes of the CW’s hit series Arrow last season.
“I was shellshocked at first with the intense schedule, but now I’m in the character’s skin,” Gustin said. “Just yesterday, I was on the treadmill, in front of a green screen, in the suit. It was a full day of running.”
Adapted by Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg from the DC Entertainment comic book, The Flash chronicles the adventures of Barry Allen, a nice-guy forensic scientist who gains superhuman speed after a mishap involving a particle accelerator explosion and a lightning bolt.
An appropriate moniker—and costume—soon follow.
What sets the series apart from, say, Arrow and some of the other new comic-book-inspired series—Gotham on Fox, and Constantine on NBC—is an overall brighter tone and a gleeful embrace of the source material. For instance, eventually Flash will face off against a super-intelligent, telepathic gorilla named Grodd.
“Everything with The Flash is a lot closer to the comic book version a lot sooner than audiences would expect it,” Gustin said. “I haven’t fought Gorilla Grodd yet, but we’re going to continue to see sprinkles of the character throughout the first half of the season.”
Gustin’s own Hollywood ascent has been particularly rapid. In just three years, the 24-year-old has gone from performing onstage in the Broadway touring company of West Side Story to recurring roles on teen-minded series such as 90210 and Glee, and landing his own starring role as a comic-book icon.
It was not a trajectory he would have easily imagined.
“When I first got the audition, I was surprised they even wanted to see me, to be honest,” he said. “Because of my age and I’m not stereotypical superhero build.”
Then again, Allen isn’t a stereotypical superhero.
“Barry has always kind of been a loner,” Gustin said. “He’s a little awkward, and I don’t think these powers are going to change the social aspects of him.”
When the series begins, Allen’s father, Henry (John Wesley Shipp), is in prison, serving time for the mysterious death of his wife, Barry’s mother. Allen is determined to exonerate him of the crime, even while wrestling with his newfound abilities.
“This whole first season is focusing on Barry trying to solve his mother’s murder and trying to free his dad from prison while trying to figure out his powers and his friendships and love life,” Gustin said.
Shipp’s casting is in part a nod to the Flash’s own television history—fans might recall that Shipp starred in an earlier Flash series, which aired for just one season on CBS in 1990.
“We needed to find the complete opposite of our Arrow,” says Kreisberg, who also serves as show runner for The Flash, “someone bright-eyed and accessible with a great sense of humor, while also having the inner strength to believably play a superhero. If we hadn’t found Grant, we might not have done the spinoff at all.”
Gustin said he’s enjoyed his time on the show’s Vancouver set so far—playing a superhero does have certain advantages.
“The purest joy in the world is to put vinyl on the bottom of my shoes and to enter and exit frame; I slide in,” Gustin said. “It never gets old. I keep trying to slide further, and they beg me, ‘Just slide 3 feet and stop.’”
Patrick Kevin Day / Los Angeles Times