You couldn’t blame The Flash,” he’s already played multiple variations of the same person.
But figuring out exactly which version of Dr. Harrison Wells he needs to be in any given scene — the actual, mostly benevolent Wells of the past; the nefarious Eobard Thawne, a.k.a. the Reverse Flash, inhabiting Wells’s body; the acerbic, single-minded Harry Wells of the extradimensional parallel world Earth-2; or any new twist thrown his way — doesn’t give Cavanagh pause at all. In fact, he’s ready for the producers to bring an infinite amount of Wellses.
“Here’s my thing. What I understood when I signed on to this show, that the highest tally wins,” grinned Cavanagh at a recent press Q&A. “Recently, Grant [Gustin] and I had this discussion where he was like, ‘No, no, I’m, like, number one on the callsheet. I’m The Flash. It’s not going to change if you do ten characters.’ But I still feel like when a man sets a goal, a man should follow through with that goal.”
He’s especially pleased with his work in the show’s second season, developing a testier, pricklier version of Wells that set Barry Allen and Team Flash on edge but ultimately appears to be on the side of the angels. “This version of Harrison Wells is coming swimmingly along,” he said. “This has a nice sort of arc to it where it was like, “These people suck. I want to get my daughter back. These people suck. I want to get my daughter back. These people suck. Oh, I got my daughter back — OK, these people don’t suck.’ I like to keep all that emotional stuff pretty close to the vest, but your actions are your words.”
Executive producer Andrew Kreisberg said he sincerely believes Cavanagh deserves an Emmy Award, particularly for the seamless way he’s slipped between the different incarnations of Wells. When he recently resumed the role of the evil Wells/Thawne Reverse-Flash from Season One for the episode “Flash Back,” said Kresiberg, “you were reminded of how different and deadly and scary that character was, and what a wild card it was.”
Then he was back as the Earth-2 Wells, “a tortured man who’s beset with guilt, then you see these incredibly loving scenes of him and his daughter and just how much he loves her,” added Kreisberg. “It’s all played by the same guy, and it’s all just shades and variations and subtle tweaks to the character, and you believe it all.”
Cavanagh said he believes that the television format and the show’s superheroic world have lent themselves to allowing him tremendous performance opportunities that the audience more easily accepts. “Because you spend 40 plus hours crafting various things, and it’s harder to do that on the big screen,” he said. “It’s much easier to do on television. By virtue of putting in the time, and the time, and the time. Then you have a scene between Earth-1 guy, and Season Two Barry Allen that everyone can follow along with. They’ve spent 40 hours, so you’ve got that in the bank as you start saying those words.”
He points to specific confrontation in “Flash Back” between Thawne/Wells and The Flash that effectively used the characters’ history to ratchet up the tension in an already exciting scene. “It had these arcs and heights and valleys to it where it looked like I was the aggressor, then he was the aggressor, then I was going to kill him, and he had a reason for us not to do that… That’s one of the great things about doing a show like this. Yes, they’re having this huge psychological face off, but there’s also a ticking clock in the form of a Time Wraith who’s coming to kill. That was, for me personally, that was the highlight for my Season Two. I think Grant and I both, when they yelled cut on the final bit of that scene, we were very, very sad to be done that one. That was just a really, really gratifying moment for the two of us.”
“People could follow the things that we’re talking about in that room — everybody understands the logic,” enthused Cavanagh. “If you’re fortunate enough to get on a show that runs for a little bit, then you start having these moments where you’ve invested time, and then that kind of scene is a payoff. And it can’t happen every episode, but when it does come along, that sort of seems the domain of a long-running television show. People have come along with you along the way, so they have stuff invested as you have as the person playing it.”
Kreisberg said he saw Cavanagh’s thoughtful take on the Earth-2 Wells kick in as soon as he was presented with the first scripts of the season. “One of the most interesting things was when we were writing the beginning of this season, we have the table read, and Tom had basically cut half his lines out. He speaks a lot less. The Wells from last season could fake being a human being. He’s verbose and he liked to talk and he liked to be a showman, and this Wells had no time for people. He lived in his head. So it was a learning experience for us as writers that sort of came with the other direction, because Tom really created the Wells for this season… He’s a jerk, and yet he’s doing everything he’s doing because he loves his daughter more than anything in the world. We love that dichotomy.”
“We had an opportunity where we killed the other guy, so this new guy, he has to look like that guy clearly, but apart from that we’ve got this palette where we can create a whole bunch of different things,” Cavanagh explained. “I thought it would be nice if this guy talked a lot less, he was a lot bitchier, he was a malcontent. He had the intelligence, but his intelligence was not on display the way Season One Wells was. His intelligence was for him, and that was it. He wasn’t a people person, he was an antagonist. I think our show is helped by that. It’s nice to have a little conflict on our show. This was an opportunity to provide that on a daily basis.”
“When it comes to like creating [characters], I just love it,” the actor added. “I take a lot of pains to figure out what would be, first, best for the show, and second, best for me as an actor to play. And I loved playing this guy who was short with people. He just had this rage in him that he was this guy who was so powerful on this Earth, and yet incapable of protecting the most important person to him from this. And that fueled everything for him.”
Cavanagh believes that all of the work he and the writers are doing have set the viewers up for a major payoff at the show heads toward its season finale. “We have this scene which I won’t give it away, but I kept it in my back pocket the entire season,” he said. “I knew there’d be a moment where we’d get to play it. And sure enough, these guys wrote our season finale, where it’s in there. I’ve just been longing to do it.”
Kreisberg said he thinks it’s a shame that because Cavanagh’s delivering such a multilayered performance on a series in the superhero genre, he’s unlikely to collect the kind of showbiz industry trophies his colleagues think he deserves. “That that doesn’t get larger recognition will always be, unfortunately, because it’s a superhero show,” he said. “You won’t get that.”
“But you guys are the media — you have the power to change that!” joked Cavanagh. “Can I have an Emmy, please? That’d be awesome. I’d love that.”
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A whole new world — and a brand new Flash — are coming in “The Flash” Season 2.
Expect to see more of Iris this season, after Barry kept her in the dark last year.
Executive producer Greg Berlanti said they’ll be introducing several characters from Earth-2 this year, beyond Garrick. Also, actor Michael Ironside will be playing Lewis Snart, the estranged, abusive father of villains Leonard Snart/Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) and Lisa Snart/Golden Glider (Peyton List).
Just as a teaser/warning,