THE FLASH at TCA: Live-Blog

The cast and producers of THE FLASH are here at the Television Critics Association press tour to panel the new CW drama.

Follow along for a live-blog!

10:48 AM: “It’s probably the most faithful adaptation,” Geoff Johns says of THE FLASH staying true to the comic book roots.

10:50 AM: The Flash has been EP Greg Berlanti’s favorite character since he was 13. Adorable.

10:51 AM: “We’re thinking about starting a Kickstarter,” Andrew Kreisberg jokes about how they’re going to fund the series. He notes the pilot was a “steep learning curve.”

10:52 AM: Johns says “FLASH is very near and close to my heart” says of the show. Flash is one of his favorite characters. (He’s also working on ARROW, GOTHAM, CONSTANTINE, and IZOMBIE.)

10:53 AM: “To be honest, I didn’t know too much about Barry Allen,” Grant Gustin admits. He knew the power, but he didn’t know the backstory. Gustin says that this role is now his favorite thing he’s done so far.

10:55 AM: “We really see TV and movies as separate worlds,” Johns says. They don’t want to put the TV and movie creators in a box, and trying to combine all the worlds together could constrain things — they want to make the best show/movie possible.

But in terms of news, Wentworth Miller will be playing Leonard Snart/Captain Cold in episode 4 of the show.

10:57 AM: The producers note that the new Barry Allen storyline in the comics has Barry’s mother dying, which the show has used. They love that despite all of his tragedy, he has hopes.

10:59 AM: There is an easter egg about Gorilla Grodd in the pilot. The EPs fought really, really, really hard to keep it in, saying they were willing to cut any other 10 seconds of the pilot.

11:00 AM: On finding Gustin for Barry: “[ARROW star] Stephen [Amell] is sort of the more prototypical hero, and we wanted someone who was more normal, and had greatness thrust upon us,” Kreisberg says.

“It is not a cast I would ever want to do karaoke with,” Greg Berlanti says. Carlos Valdes apparently won over WB boss Peter Roth by singing a song during his audition. But in

11:04 AM: “All three of us are huge fans of the original FLASH,” Kreisberg says of casting John Wesley Shipp. Shipp worked with Berlanti on DAWSON’S CREEK.

“He was so sweet and so kind,” Kreisberg says, and they knew they wanted him to be a part of the show. “He’s playing one of the most important parts on the show.”

11:06 AM: “They were so geeked out about this show,” Jesse L. Martin says of the EPs. They all met at a teahouse, and Martin says he knew nothing about The Flash: he knew he ran fast, and he had a suit. But the EPs sold it so well, Martin says he knew, “I would be so stupid to not get involved in this thing.”

11:08 AM:  Robbie Amell plays Danielle Panabaker’s fiance in THE FLASH. He will first show up in episode 3.

11:09 AM: “We never got to the nitty, gritty details of what episode 20 would have been,” Kreisberg says of how this new standalone pilot worked out from the intended backdoor pilot.

11:10 AM: As a kid, “I hated running, and I quit soccer because I thought it was ridiculous,” Gustin says. But he is fast.

11:11 AM: “I have every issue of THE FLASH from the ’50s, on,” Johns says.

11:13 AM “Comic-Con, we were just talking about it…it’s a pilgrimage,” Johns says. “There’s not a GREY’S ANATOMY convention.”

11:14 AM: Martin Stein will appear on THE FLASH, eventually. They originally planned to have him in the pilot, but opted against it.

11:15 AM: “The first time I shot in the suit for the pilot was during a tornado moment…Andrew was there doing Tom’s dialogue for me, and yelling at me…we were both really excited, geeking out, that it was happening…I feel really powerful in it,” Gustin says of being in the suit.

11:16 AM: “Cisco represents the fanboys,” Kreisberg says. Sometimes his initial names for the villains are even worse than the ones they land on in the show.

11:17 AM: “Just like on ARROW, we wanted our own emblematic version” of the suit, Berlanti says. But they’re open to changing it,  because the suit is a work in progress on the show.

11:19 AM: “I spent part of my childhood in Africa, and we didn’t have television, but we had comic books,” Tom Cavanagh says of his comic history. He admits the EPs know a whole lot more than he does, though.

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