After a recent screening of this week's Flash episode "Tricksters", Mark Hamill (Star Wars, Batman: The Animated Series) talked abit about returning to the role of The Trickster after 20 years.
"When this version came on, my daughter Chelsea is a big fan, and I watched it from the very first episode," Hamill recalled. "In fact, I even thought, since they were doing Weather Wizard and various other Rogues' Gallery characters, I wondered if they were going to do the Trickster. And then, again, I got a call from my business people saying 'they want you to do something on The Flash.' And I was thinking, you know, like a colleague of John Wesley Shipp's; a professor… something age-appropriate. I'm not getting back into that one-piece jumpsuit; the spandex deal. So, I said 'well, who do they want me to play?' and when they said The Trickster, I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't figure out how that could be, unless it's some kind of weird time travel episode. I don't know. I was very skeptical, but then I called Andrew [Kreisberg],"
Well, it's safe to assume that Hamill was pleased with Kreisberg's pitch as he is set to appear on the show this Tuesday. He also went on to praise the writing on the show.
"The one thing that impressed me about the show is how smart the writing is. It's got the fantasy element, the comic book elements… but it's really strong in characters, I think. The backstory with the father wrongly accused, from the very first episode, that's really a strong hold on the audience. And, you get to know so much about the personal lives of these characters… so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when they had such an ingenious idea as having Devon Graye play a new Trickster"
"I mean, when I read the script, I said 'WHO'S THIS PUNK GETTING ALL MY STUFF?' You know. I reacted just like I was in character. Because he really gets to do all of the fun Trickstery things, with the parachute bombs and whatnot"
Hamill also made it clear that there's gonna be a BIG Difference between the two Tricksters and that he was okay with that.
"I'd seen Devon working, and he was very, very good, but there was a take where he confesses his devotion for me, and he was so real," he recalled. "It was astonishing in how troubled a kid this was. I'm just doing my crazy comic book guy that's just not tethered to reality in my mind, and he brought it so close to home, in terms of how emotionally damaged he was. I'm telling you, it just moved me beyond words. As far as I'm concerned, he's a worthy successor"
Kriesdeg also had a bit to say when a fan asked him if we would see the James Jesse Trickster teaming up with the other Rouges...
"Yes, that is the plan. What's so fun for us and why we were again so grateful to Mark for wanting to be part of this is, when I sit down and I think of Wentworth Miller and Mark in a scene together and watching the dichotomy of them...
I think that sometimes there's a tendency to just spit out the same villain week in and week out on these shows and for us, having people who are so different and having people who have powers and having people who are slightly unhinged but geniuses, it's...that's the other reason we wanted to do the Trickster, too. You have so many villains who have these amazing abilities, either because they're metahumans or because they have this incredible weaponry. And what was always cool about The Trickster on both series is that he was smart. No matter how crazy he was, he was smart and he thought like four steps ahead. Watching The Flash and our team going up against somebody brilliant, a lot of the times our shows are about how to chemically or scientifically or how The Flash can use his powers to stop somebody, but this time it was, they really have to outthink him."
The 17th Episode Of The Flash, "Tricksters" Airs This Tuesday, March 31st (Ironically, a day before April Fool's Day) on the CW.