NYCC’16: Sitting Down With Matt Ryan and the Team Behind Justice League: Dark

This January, DC Animation is spotlighting the occult heroes of the DC universe in Justice League: Dark. Like the team in the comics, this team deals with cases in the magical realm, cases that the main Justice League team isn’t adept at handling. Executive Producer James Tucker, Director Jay Oliva, Batman voice actor Jason O’Mara, Constantine voice actor Matt Ryan and character designer Phil Bourassa held a panel on Saturday on NYCC’s Main Stage and also sat down with The Beat beforehand to talk about the upcoming animated movie.

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If there is anything about Justice League: Dark that people are talking about, it’s that Constantine TV series star Matt Ryan was cast to play Constantine in Justice League: Dark. When asked if it was difficult to play Constantine as a voice actor as opposed to live action, Matt Ryan replied, “Ultimately the DNA of the character is the same. I love the character so much. There is so much more to explore with him. With a character like that, I just feel lucky that I had the opportunity to play him. I thought about taking a trenchcoat with me to wear in the booth. I feel blessed to play him again.”

If Matt Ryan could play any other DC character? “Wonder Woman.” That’s right. Wonder Woman. You heard it here first.

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Director Jay Oliva felt very lucky to get Matt Ryan cast as Constantine. He elaborated, “I never know what I’m going to be working on until they drop a script on my desk. They said you’re going to do Dark, and I asked if Swamp Thing was in it, and they said yes, and I asked is Constantine in it, and they said yes, and I asked if I could get Matt Ryan, and they said yes.”

Speaking of Swamp Thing, Jay confided that “We were trying to do a Swamp Thing direct to video for years and it never came to be,” so he was very happy to be able to include Swamp Thing in this movie. Designer Phil Bourassa did about a dozen concept drawings when coming up with the look of Swamp Thing for the movie. “I was just having so much fun with it. Finally, I had one I really liked and that’s the one I pitched to James Tucker and DC, and that’s the one they went with,” Phil said. Would he change the look for a Swamp Thing solo movie?  “If we were to do a solo film with Swamp Thing, we might take a different approach. With these characters, they’re the freaks and the monsters. They’re more off the wall and bizarre. There’s much more latitude, like when we’re introducing villains. but we turn it on its head because they’re the heroes,” he elaborated.

As for the designs of the characters, “With Dark, I wanted to show what I would like to see in a live action version of these characters.” In regards to the special effects designs in the movie, Jay Oliva said, “I’m a huge Final Fantasy fan, so for the look of the magic, I looked at my old video games and took what I liked from them.”

Batman is the Justice League main team member who is also on the Dark team. Batman voice actor Jason O’Mara has played Batman in seven animated movies now. When asked what separates his portrayal of Batman from others who have donned the mantle of the caped crusader, O’Mara responded, “It’s the only one where he’s a father. In the Justice League, Batman can give out orders knowing that they’re adults, but sending your own son into danger, that’s a different thing.”

Who is Jason O’Mara’s favorite portrayal of Batman on-screen? Michael Keaton. O’Mara elaborated, “I always felt that Michael Keaton had a great balance. He was dark, but had a wry, mercurial sense of humor. I felt the other actors either went too much one way or the other. In Justice League: Dark, there’s a lot of opportunity for Batman to throw out some glib comments. I like my Batman. It’s in its own little corner. We’re in uncharted territory right now, in regards to his relationship with Damian. I’m interested to see where we’re going to go next with that.”

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Executive Producer James Tucker with the promo poster for Justice League: Dark.

James Tucker said that his goal when taking the reigns of the animated DC universe from Bruce Timm “was to bring in more characters into TV. The best way to do it was to introduce them in existing titles. That’s the goal of using the main headliners to jumpstart the other franchises.” Will we see other mystical DC heroes like Lucifer brought into the animated universe anytime soon? James Tucker said, “Lucifer? Buy this one. We’ll get a sequel, and then yeah, sure. Yay, devil.”

Stranger Things Panel – NYCC 2016

If you need proof that everyone and their mother is into the Netflix original series Stranger Things, then all you needed was to be at New York Comic Con’s Main Stage 1-D on Friday morning. Despite it being the first panel of the day, it was an overflow crowd in the largest panel room at the Javits Center.

There were only two guests at the panel, Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven) and David Harbour (Hopper). Not that the crowd minded. Each received a standing ovation. The moderator led them through a conversation behind the scenes of making season one of the hit Netflix original series.

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When asked about the audition process, Millie said, “Eleven talking? No. I didn’t have to stare. I cried a lot in the audition. And that was it.” When they offered her the part, they told her. “We’re going to cut your hair off. Your name is Eleven. And you’re going to relate yourself to ET.”

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David Harbour wore a hat to his audition. “I never do that,” he said. “But I thought this is a guy who likes to hide. The casting director said, “Hey man, do you want one without the hat?” And I said, “No, I’m good.” Obviously the hat worked.

In regards to finding the character of Eleven, Millie said, “When we were on set, I was like, I don’t know what to do, and then I was like, “I know what to do to break someone’s neck!” And Matt said “Never say that out loud again.” Good advice.

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Millie had to have her head shaved on the day of the table read. Millie said that hair had gotten everywhere when they shaved her head, and she spent the entire table read scratching herself like a crazy person, because the cut hair that had stuck to her clothes was causing her to itch like mad. Though at the table read, her only lines were “Ugh” and “No.” Millie said she spent a lot of time thinking, “I’ve got to look like a child, but scary.”

Out of all the scenes, Millie said, “The bathtub scene was hard. I was like, “There’s a lot of salt in here.” But the most difficult shooting experience was with the Demogorgon. The suit that the actor wears who plays the Demogorgon is very thick. Because the suit was so thick, he couldn’t hear or feel anything. When Millie had a scene with him where she had to touch him on the back, he couldn’t feel her touch. The Duffers yelled at him to react, but he couldn’t hear him. Millie said something to him to get him to react and nothing, because he couldn’t even hear her. Eventually, they had to have someone kneel next to him and pinch his feet when it was time for him to turn.

Speaking of the Demogorgon, there were two toddlers on set, including Millie’s younger sibling. The Duffers had to tell the toddlers the Demogorgon was only a monster from Monsters Inc. And the toddlers said, “Okay!”

On the timing of Eleven’s nosebleeds, Millie said, “We’d load it (her nose) up. I’d say to the Duffers, “I’ll call action.” And I’d feel it (the blood) coming and say, “Action!” The timing was so good.”

In regards to playing a child from the 80s, Millie said, “It was good having David, and Wynona and Matthew Modine on set to tell me about the 80s. I was like, why don’t we just call Will on the phone?” And they were like, “No, Millie! You couldn’t do that back then!” The conversation then switched to the differences between how television is consumed now vs how it was then. David Harbour reminisced, “You know what I remember, when I was a kid, Michael Jackson’s Thriller video came out on MTV and my friends and I huddled around the TV for an hour waiting for it to come on.”

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David Harbour was a huge D&D guy growing up in the 80s. Millie was surprised. “Wait, you placed D&D?” David responded, “Yeah, I’m a nerd. I’m a cleric. I’m a holy warrior of the light. A book in one hand and a big mace in the other.” Dungeons & Dragons is not Millie’s thing. “Dungeons and Dragons, can I relate it to Pokemon? Because I’m a Valor. It’s 2016. Be present. We play Pokemon Go now.” When asked if the cast played Dungeons & Dragons on set, David said, “If there was, I wasn’t invited!”

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David commented that the cast and crew were amazed that Millie could put Eleven away when not filming. On the other hand, Hopper was close to David throughout the entire shoot, even when the cameras weren’t moving.  “I don’t do the Jared Leto stuff of sending dead pigs to people. But I do have to carry it around with me. Atlanta is an easy place to be sad and lonely. I would just go home a lot and smoke cigarettes and dread my days. But it was good for the character,” said Harbour. Millie countered, “Your character is very sad and lonely, but you like coffee.” David questioned, “That’s  happy thing?” Millie smiled while imitating him as she said, “But you always say, Flo get my coffee.” David then explained to the audience more of his method with acting around the kids off-camera. He said, “People ask about working with the kids. The first interaction I had with the kids was in the school telling them not to look for Will. That day, I was like, get my chair away from them. I don’t want to talk to them. At the time, they thought I was an angry weird dude.”

While the Upside Down looked creepy AF on the show, David said that in reality,  “It’s super dorky. It doesn’t look like it does on the show. On the show, it’s amazing. On the set, there is bunch of purple piping that pulsates, so you feel like you’re in a bad haunted house. For the spores, there was a guy with a pillowcase filled with dandelion spores.”

Someone asked if the Stranger Things set was near The Walking Dead set. It turns out Millie is a HUGE Walking Dead fan. “I would have died if I was anywhere near the walking dead people,” she commented.

When asked which character from the show they would cosplay as, Millie said, “I might dress up as Poppa,” while David said, “I want to dress up as Barb.”

Speaking of Barb, David Harbour was very adamant when he said, “We won’t tell you anything about season two, but we will tie up some loose ends. And we will pursue justice for judge. I will assure everyone here that Barb is very much dead.”

David and Millie have a great give and take relationship with each other. This panel was a complete treat for any fans of Stranger Things lucky enough to get in the room.

Jack Gleason Spotlight – NYCC 2016

Welcome to King Joffrey’s court! This panel was billed as a look back on Jack Gleason’s life an career, all twenty some odd years of it.

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Jack said that his love for acting began because his two older sisters acted in the local community center, and he became interested. Jack joked that “if the community center had karate classes instead of acting classes, I might have got really into karate.”

The moderator brought up his first movie, the Matthew McConaughey movie, Reign of Fire.  Jack immediately called it a “really mediocre movie.” When asked, “You can say that?” by the moderator, Jack responded, “I mean, who’s going to care?” Jack pissed himself on set, but thankfully no one noticed.

The moderator  asked Jack about playing the part of Little Boy in Batman Begins. “He was christened Little Boy. His dad was John Boy.” How did that role come about? “As an actor you go to a lot of auditions, and sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don’t. And I got lucky.”

And then you got cast on Game of Thrones. “I thought you were going to talk about Shrooms, the Irish indie horror flick. I didn’t play Little Boy. I played Lonely Twin. Let’s not get into it. It’s not a good movie.

He said that at the Game of Thrones audition, he thought that it went well, but didn’t want to get his hopes up. He almost lost the part though, because filming of the pilot was supposed to take place during when Jack would have been taking the Irish equivalent of the SATs, and he couldn’t miss that. He thought he’d have to

Jack was asked if he read the books before they started filming? “I read the first book before we filmed the first season, but before I auditioned, I never had never heard of it. Because I’m an idiot.” When asked why he didn’t read past first book, he said, “Because I don’t have the attention span to read those kind of books. I was already studying Philosophy in University.”

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When asked about his best scene, Jack responded, “I don’t know if there’s a scene where I did my best work, but the final scene that I appear in, Joffrey’s corpse is lying in the sept, and I just got to sleep for the whole day. That was amazing. I would literally fall asleep. They put those ceremonial stones on my eyes. I’d fall asleep and realize I shouldn’t have been, and there’s this acting going on around me. And I was like, (stiffens up). I don’t know if it was my best acting, but it was my favorite.”

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“Shhhh, I’m trying to sleep here.”

Jack was asked if he looks up Joffrey’s demise. He responded that he did, immediately. Jack explained, “One of the first things I did when I got the part was, I looked up the Wikipedia entry on the character. When you get a job, if you know you’re going to get fired at some point, you would look up online when it would happen.” Was he upset to leave the show? No. He explained, “Four seasons is enough. Three seasons, two episodes, that was enough. I think everyone in the cast still loves performing and acting in the show, but my dad says to leave the party early, and not be the last at the party. I feel like I left at the right time.”

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On Joffrey’s death scene, Jack said, “It’s very hard to try to pretend to choke to death. Has anyone here choked to death before? It’s hard to do that and make it convincing.”

When asked if which role he would have wanted to play besides Joffrey, “Probably Hodor. From an acting point of view, you only have to learn one line.”

Jack never watched Games of Thrones while he was on the show, because he doesn’t like to watch himself on screen. Did he pick up the show after Joffrey died? Jack joked, “No, it’s too much to catch up on. Even when I got the scripts, I would only read my own scenes. I’m selfish. Maybe I should get into it. I hear it’s good. It always wins Emmys. Maybe I should give it a shot.”

Stan Lee to Make His Final NYCC Appearance

New York Comic Con announced yesterday that this year would be Stan Lee’s final appearance at NYCC. No reasons were given, and this news coming so quickly on the heels of Darwyn Cooke’s death immediately had me fearing the worst. But hopefully Stan is doing well and at 93 years of age just wants to kick back, relax and escape the grind of constantly touring for conventions.

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How does this affect your personal NYCC? Are you going to make it a priority to get Stan Lee’s autograph this year? I’ve met Stan twice and have his autograph on three comics, so getting his signature again isn’t a priority for me. That said, I know I will definitely be signing up for a photo with Stan if it’s offered. And yes, I will be wearing my Spider-Man costume from The RPC Studio.  Hmm, I better start doing some situps. That spandex outfit DOES NOT hide a belly.

All the best and excelsior, Stan! We hope you’re in good health!

NYCC 2016: How to Buy Tickets

Written by David Henehan.

In an effort to deter the rampant scalping of tickets that has plagued New York Comic Con in recent years, show promoter ReedPop has announced some big changes the NYCC ticket buying process for 2016.

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The biggest news is the implementation of the new Fan Verification System. Similar to the system that is in place for tickets to San Diego Comic-Con, this new system requires that everyone who desires to buy a ticket for NYCC first set up a user profile. That profile will be good for buying one ticket for each day of NYCC. For example, Groot wants to buy tickets for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He could either buy one 3-Day Pass or buy individual tickets for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. What he won’t be able to do is buy both one 3-Day Pass and one Saturday ticket, because that would violate the one ticket per day rule.

What if you need a friend to buy you your ticket? That’s not a problem, as long as you first set up your Fan Verification profile and give your friend the email address attached to that profile. For example, Rocket needs Groot to buy him his ticket. Groot wants a 3-Day Pass and Rocket wants tickets for Saturday and Sunday. Once ticket buying begins, Groot puts in an order for tickets, and associates his profile for his 3-Day Pass and Rocket’s profile for Rocket’s Saturday and Sunday tickets. This will all be done on one order.

When are tickets going on sale? We don’t know yet and NYCC has no plans to publically announce when tickets go on sale. Fans who set up a Fan Verification profile will be emailed with the timeframe in which they can buy tickets 48 hours before they are able to purchase tickets. Monitor your inbox closely!

Do you usually buy your NYCC ticket at Midtown Comics? You won’t be able to this year. Newly announced for 2016 is that online will be the ONLY place to buy your ticket. We were headed in this direction over the past few years, as comic books stores allowed to sell NYCC tickets dwindled until it was only Midtown Comics. I’m guessing Midtown Comics doesn’t mind losing out on selling NYCC tickets. I have no idea what their commission was for tickets sold, but the managing of that line that stretched blocks and saw people lining up a full day before tickets went on sale was a daunting and thankless task. Plus, getting rid of retail sales makes it harder for the scalpers. Last year, there were reports of scalpers paying people to stand in line for them and then fronting them the cash to buy the max number of tickets.

Another big piece of news, but one that only affects a small segment of NYCC attendees: There will be no VIP tickets this year. If you’re someone who buys VIP tickets every year, this is huge news. Despite their cost, VIP tickets were always the first to sell out every year. The tickets were pricy, but had nice perks baked into them: exclusive signing sessions with top creators like Scott Snyder, the ability to get onto the show floor before other fans, and a VIP lounge where you could rest up and check your coat and bags. I’m surprised NYCC is getting rid of these tickets, but my guess is that with the new rolling tickets buying process, getting rid of the VIP tickets was easier than figuring out a way to allocate such a small number of tickets for each on-sale session.

The big question is: will the new fan verification process work? Will it stop a large segment of scalpers? On the one hand, what’s to stop scalpers from creating dummy email accounts and fan profiles to still buy lots of tickets? Under the new system, if a scalper wanted to buy 12 tickets, he would need to make 12 separate email accounts. And really, how hard is that? On the other hand, by requiring the Fan Verification profile to be setup in advance, NYCC is knocking out the scalpers that are late to the game, the ones who jumped on NYCC ticket sales day-of because they heard they were easy to flip.

Yes, there are more hurdles to climb to buy a ticket. The new NYCC ticket buying process seems more stress inducing than before. But hopefully it works, and tickets end up in the hands of fans, not scalpers. Overall, I think these changes will be for the better and not for the worse. Good luck, everyone. We hope to see you at NYCC.

More information on the new NYCC ticket buying process can be found at the official New York Comic Con website.