‘I’m 60 years old and I’m well aware I’ve got another good 10 years of physical activity – I saw it immediately like that,’ actor said
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Lanterns is really leaning into its mean streak, with a double act unlike any on TV at the moment – and Kyle Chandler has compared his character’s fear of giving up his power to his own status as an actor in his 60s.
The HBO Max show, which is based on of the DC comic book superhero, stars Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan, a grumpy version of the character who has been tasked with training his replacement, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre). The problem is, he really doesn’t want to give up the gig.
In episode three, we learn about how John came to be selected by the Green Lantern Corps. It was actually his father who was originally targeted when John was just a baby, but when he failed to pass the test of bravery, they returned to test John as an adult.
At the end of the episode, after being questioned by an extra-terrestrial Guardian of the Universe (Laura Linney), he is approved to become the next Green Lantern. Only Hal isn’t going to hand over the baton without a fight – and makes that very clear in the episode’s closing moments.
In an interview with The Independent, Chandler said that John’s youth poses “an AI-style threat” to the ego of a man who might not be physically capable of carrying out the role in the near future – something the 60-year-old can associate with in real life as an actor.
“As we were shooting this, the one thing that immediately came to me was, ‘I’m 60 years old and I’m well aware I’ve got another good 10 years of physical activity, another 10 years maybe of I don’t know what – and then you know, you’re sort of hanging up your boots at that point –as me, Kyle. So this character, I saw it immediately like that.”
He continued: “If I was going to step out of acting, I would step out of my identity – it’s been 36 years doing this – and that’s not an easy thing to do; it’s a scary thing to do.
“I see it now with my contemporaries – they’re retiring. If you retire, you lose your friendships at work, you lose your identity – you have to recreate yourself through who you really are and that’s like being born again. I just thought, for Hal, that is not a place he wants to go, so yeah, this young punk is a threat – a big threat. Like an AI threat.”
Chandler said this dynamic opened up “so much area for humour and fun”, with his character constantly “attacking him for being youthful and not having the wisdom I have”. In fact, the actor said the scene in the opening episode, in which he jumps out of the driver’s seat of the car as it heads towards a cliff, leaving John behind as a passenger, was what made him want to sign on the dotted line.
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“The opportunity to, in essence, try to kill him, it would seem – that was fun! The first episode when that car goes where it goes, I laughed so much when I saw that cut. And that’s what got me wanting to do the show to begin with.”
Lanterns – which also stars Kelly Macdonald and Garrett Dilahunt – airs on HBO Max in the UK and US.
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