‘The Flash’ spoilers: Grant Gustin on understanding role, being Barry Allen

Back when the news was first announced that Grant Gustin was going to be playing The Flash for an upcoming CW series, fan reaction was mixed, much in the way that it was when Stephen Amell and not Justin Hartley was announced as the Green Arrow for “Arrow” a few years ago. The truth of the matter here is that the internet is always going to be presumptuous, and state strong opinions without really a whole lot of information to back them up. Trust us when we say that we were nervous, too.

However, things have clearly changed since that time. Amell is so good that we can’t imagine anyone else as the Arrow now, and Gustin has been the subject of plenty of positive buzz, as well. He is not the prototypical superhero in some ways, and that is largely makes him great. He even agrees with some of this in speaking about this role to The Hollywood Reporter:

“If it had been a team of people that didn’t know what they were doing, I probably wouldn’t have gotten this role because they would have just cast a blonde guy who was buff … They were looking for somebody who encompassed the heart of Barry Allen and at first, I didn’t realize I did. Now that I’ve explored the character, the comics, read the scripts and talked to [the producers], I understand why I got this role.

“It will probably forever be my favorite character that I’ll ever get to play,”

That’s a bold statement, but we’re glad that Grant loves it! It’s definitely a good thing, given that we know he has done 16-hour work days already for the show, fighting off scores of baddies as the classic character.