Glee’s Grant Gustin is currently shooting his first appearance as Barry Allen on The CW’s hit superhero show Arrow ahead of a potential spin-off series, and KSiteTV managed to catch up with executive producer Andrew Kreisberg this week, during which he spoke about the development of the character, as well as his transition into The Flash…
“With Arrow, we wrote [Barry] without anybody in mind,” says Kreisberg. “This time, as we were writing these episodes, we cast Grant in the middle of it. We met with a lot of other really talented people. Not just talented, but good guys, and it was funny, because as each of us – Geoff [Johns] and Greg [Berlanti] and I — were working on individual scenes, we all sort of came together and said ‘we’re all writing Grant.’ It was just him. That was different, because now when we go into writing the actual pilot in Episode 20, we already have our guy, and we’ve already seen him on the screen, so hopefully we’ll actually literally be able to look at things and learn.”
Kreisberg then went on to discuss how Stephen Amell’s vigilante goes on to inspire Barry to don the red suit as the Scarlet Speedster: “Barry’s a fanboy. He comes to Starling City and he says to Felicity, ‘so I heard the vigilante saved you. What’s he like?’ So I think for Barry, it’s one of those things where it’s sort of like ‘be careful what you wish for. If you look at the Justice League, you have Superman and Aquaman and Wonder Woman. You have all these gods. And then you’ve got Barry Allen, who’s just a guy. That’s, I think, why the character appeals so much to Greg and to Geoff and to me, and it’s also why he’s a really good fit to the world of Arrow, because while we’re obviously introducing some fantastical concepts to things, we want to still keep the show as grounded and realistic as possible. So I think that the events that happen to The Flash, and what’s going on in Central City… I think some people will be like ‘that’s not happening. There must be an explanation for it.’ Barry’s a good guy, and he’s seen that it’s possible to put on a mask and change the world.”
Arrow returns to The CW for its second season on October 9th, while Gustin will make his first appearance in episode eight.
Originally published October 1, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
