Entertainment Weekly has announced that Billy Zane will be reuniting with his Titanic co-star Victor Garber, having signed on for a one-episode guest appearance in the upcoming third season of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. Zane is set to play P.T. Barnum, the American businessman, showman and politician.
““Obviously, we couldn’t resist putting Victor Garber and Billy Zane back on screen for the first time since Titanic,” said executive producer Phil Klemperer. “But I’ve wanted to bring Billy onto Legends every since I saw him in a friend’s comedy pilot. I’m not sure that people know how funny Billy is, although we cast him as P.T. Barnum because we knew that he would be able to find the soul beneath the larger-than-life showman. Truth is, Barnum never said ‘there’s a sucker born every minute.’ He was less a conman, more the father of modern advertising. A guy who made things ‘go viral’ before that was a thing. Sure, in one sense, he’s the villain of our story, but in another, he’s just a guy who wants to put on a good show. Anyone who works in TV can relate to that, right?! Anyway, Billy seemed like the perfect guy to get that duality.”
“The thing about history books is that they turn famous people into 2-D characters. This season on Legends, we want to meet other famous figures from history, people like Barnum, people we think we know, so that we can find the aspects of them, the parts of their story, that the history books left out — we want to bring history to life by infusing it with heart, humor, and total absurdity (often at the same time).”
Zane is of course no stranger to superheroes, having donned the purple tights for the lead role in 1996’s The Phantom. He becomes the second new addition to season three of Legends after Tala Ashe, who has joined the show as a series regular and is playing the new team member Zari Adrianna Tomaz.
Originally published June 14, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
