I Am Rougue sat down with actor Seth Gabel to discuss his upcoming projects including Arrow, Fringe and Allegiance. Here's the Arrow portion of the interview below.
On whether he read any comics in preparation for the role or if the show is going in a new direction.
Gabel: I knew right away that they were doing an adaptation of the character. In the original comic book series his name is Count Vertigo and he’s a guy of eastern European decent. In this, I play a street thug/drug kingpin and instead of having super powers, whatever super powers I may have get manifested in the form of a drug called Vertigo that I found in the street of Starling City. I’m using that to acquire money, power and psychologically disturbing citizens of Starling City so that I could eventually take over.
So they're manifesting his powers through drugs the way Scarecrow was depicted in Batman Begins?
Gabel: Yeah, that’s exactly right. With that said, I wanted him to have special abilities in some way. I really wanted to make sure that he had a physically intimidating presence on the street and that whoever he goes up against; he ends up being a very worthy adversary for them.
On if he'll have a European accent in keeping with prior cartoon and comic book depictions?
Gabel: Yeah, I definitely have some kind of a voice. I threw myself into just taking big risks with the character, doing as much as I could to keep it grounded in reality, but at the same time not being afraid to be over the top. So I definitely have a voice of some kind or definitely some affectations, but they feel real and they were a blast to portray.
Will Vertigo be a physical threat to Arrow or more of a cerebral adversary?
Gabel: Yeah, we got to do some fight choreography together. I think the stunt team on that show is incredible, as well as the fight director, and we spent a lot of time making some really cool stuff happen.
If you want to find out more about Gabel's involvement with Allegiance and Fringe, click the source link below. Arrow returns January 16th on the CW.
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Running Time: 60 min
Release Date: October 10, 2012
MPAA Rating: Unknown
Starring: Katie Cassidy, Stephen Amell and Willa Holland
Directed by: David Nutter
Written by: Greg Berlanti (story/writer), Marc Guggenheim (story/writer), Andrew Kreisberg (writer), George Papp (character) and Mort Weisinger (character)