Teddy Sears Talks Bringing Jay Garrick To Live Action on The Flash

Teddy Sears who plays Jay Garrick on season 2 of The Flash, spoke to ComicBook.com on the experience of bringing the character to Live Action for the first time, when it comes how important it felt, how making the costume work on camera and much more.

What is it like taking on the first time we’ve seen Jay Garrick in a live-action show?

It’s thrilling, but I didn’t anticipate how thrilling it was going to be when I said yes. Besides the sort of obvious stuff, that suddenly I’m eight years old, running around in the backyard playing superheroes with my friends — that’s sort of a given that that would happen — but what I didn’t anticipate was sort of how important it felt when I was doing it. It’s weird and hokey and maybe very actor-y, but there was something very important that began happening, especially and most specifically, putting on that helmet.

There’s a scene where I’m reunited with the helmet for the first time and I remember shooting it. There was a real awe and reverence for seeing this thing, and that was absolutely not acted at all. There really was such substance in that sort of moment, so I just keep coming back to this feeling of, wow, it just feels really important. And I can’t sum it up any better than that, I guess.

Your costume has a retro quality that really plays well on screen while still looking modern and cool. Tell me the experience of making it work.

That was really fun. I wasn’t sure what they were going to do, because when you look at the 1940s, when he was introduced, I feel like you see — was it an old football jersey that he puts on? — [it was] very red and very yellow going up. I wasn’t sure how they were going to handle it.

So they have successfully modernized it with this really sort of cool, almost motorcycle jacket sort of aesthetic. The jacket’s wonderful. Listen, it’s all good — the pants, the boots — but it’s really the helmet. The helmet sort of caps the whole thing off. And I love what they did to the helmet too. If you look at the helmet, and we’ll certainly have enough opportunities to, it’s been around. It’s beaten up. It’s got the dings. It’s got a wonderful patina to it. It’s seen its share of battles.

So the detail that the team put into those little things, to make it, I guess to have it arrive with a story and a history and a past, that’s really what made it work for me. And as far as me making it work, they just took my measurements, man! And it just fit.

To read the full interview head over to ComicBook.com.