Following Sunday night's Lanterns premiere, a press conference for the DC Studios series was held in London, England, on Monday morning. Aaron Pierre (John Stewart), Kyle Chandler (Hal Jordan), and Kelly Macdonald (Sheriff Kerry Kane) were in attendance for the event, which we were fortunate enough to join virtually.
The trio shared heaps of fascinating spoiler-free insights into the development of the HBO Max series and their respective characters, and moderator Amon Warmann put our question to Pierre and Chandler.
While much has been said about the apparent lack of constructs in Lanterns, the premiere mostly dismissed those complaints. With that in mind, we wondered what the most challenging—or fun—part was about using their imagination to envisage the constructs Hal and John create as members of the Green Lantern Corps.
"It was just enjoyable to start doing those things. I think the first thing that I conjured was the church key to open a bottle of beer. Church key. The bottle opener," Chandler recalled. "That was the first one, but that was kind of fun because that’s the beginning of getting in touch with the visual effects people, and so now you have to figure out how you’re going to do it and what they see."
"And that happened pretty quick that we were able to figure it out because they were very quick to tell us how to do it," he continued. "But you know, there was something you had to do, and it was just fun to do it. It’s like, okay, we’re in now. We’re into the visual effects and, you know, I’m creating stuff. It was just fun to do."
Pierre then chimed in to reply, "I think the first thing that John manifests with the ring within the context of this series is bubble wrap, to protect himself from when the car crashes off the cliff. But I think my favourite thing that John manifests is the bird that becomes like his little buddy."
"And just how that, as audiences will understand as the series progresses, how that bird is so critical to John’s perspective of things and his upbringing and his youth. So that bird was very meaningful to me within the context of the character, and it was a real joy to do that."
At this point, Chandler asked if he could ask his Lanterns co-star a question. Wondering about a moment in which John's bird construct disappears, he noted that Pierre did two takes: "one was forceful, and the other one was easy."
So, did Lanterns use the take that the actor wanted? "You know what? One of the gifts of having excellent directors is that they encourage you to try things that maybe you wouldn’t try before," Pierre mused, being careful to avoid spoilers, "because they give you an alternative perspective."
"So I was actually really cool with both. My initial one was what it was, and then I got given a different perspective. Yeah, but that’s a great question. That’s a great question, brother," he concluded.
Lanterns follows new recruit John Stewart and Lantern legend Hal Jordan, two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.
Alongside Kyle Chander and Aaron Pierre, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Nicole Ari Parker, Jason Ritter, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and Jasmine Cephas Jones round out the cast.
Lanterns' first episode is now streaming on HBO Max.