Damon Lindelof on Lanterns: “If you don’t care about the people, the show’s not gonna work"

One of the year’s most keenly awaited shows has just arrived on HBO Max, in the shape of Lanterns, a compelling take on the classic DC Comics saga Green Lantern. This iteration takes a more realistic approach to the superhero characters, with echoes of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Matt Reeves’ blockbuster movie The Batman, and HBO’s more recent series The Penguin, starring Colin Farrell.

As per the famous lore, in the series, Green Lanterns are interstellar peacekeepers who wear rings giving them extraordinary powers. The story follows experienced Lantern Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and new recruit John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), as they investigate a murder in Nebraska, which Hal believes is an extraterrestrial incident, leading the duo onto bigger mysteries.

Adding to the intrigue are a raft of other fascinating characters, including Sheriff Kerry Kane, played by Trainspotting and Boardwalk Empire star Kelly Macdonald, who initially gets territorial upon the arrival of the Lanterns, though eventually becomes a love interest for Hal.

The consummate storytelling of Lanterns – which has the stylistic feel of shows like True Detective and Slow Horses – should come as no surprise given the creative pedigree behind the series. Showrunner Chris Mundy previously worked on Ozark and True Detective: Night Country, whilst his Lanterns co-creators are comics specialist Tom King and superstar writer Damon Lindelof, whose credits include Lost, The Leftovers and Watchmen.

In approaching Lanterns, Lindelof knew there was a balance to be found.

“For someone who has loved comic books all of his life, I feel that phrase, ‘It’s a comic book show’, can cut both ways,” he considers. “For the people who love comic books, it’s very inviting, but for the people who don’t have the same affinity, it can be very off-putting. It can feel like it’s childish or ridiculous. So it was our job to say, ‘We have to embrace the things that make this character persevere over the decades since they’ve been created.’

“At the same time, we have to make it palatable and interesting. There’s this word, ‘grounded’, people use to make something institutionally accessible.

“It sounds like such a trope to say it, but it really all just boils down to the characters. That’s why we form relationships with these shows. It doesn’t matter if they’re wizards at Hogwarts, or trying to get the Iron Throne in Westeros, or fighting over a magic ring that can manifest their imagination.

“If you don’t care about the people, the show’s not gonna work. So we start from this place of, ‘Who are Hal and John, and what do they want?’ All of the constructs of them being space cops fall around that, and are in service to it.”

Does Lindelof find it easier or harder working on pre-existing material?

“It’s a great question and I don’t want to hedge,” he replies. “I think the answer is harder. In my case, both Watchmen and Prometheus were things I idolised when I was younger. I didn’t go out into the world and say, ‘I want to do a Watchmen adaptation.’ Or, ‘I’m demanding a meeting with Ridley Scott for a cool Alien movie.’ It works the other way around. In both those cases, there was the crushing weight of my own fandom, and not wanting to screw it up.

“But also, even in the stuff I do that’s original, like Lost, I owe a debt to all of the things I was ingesting through my childhood and adolescence. When someone says to you, ‘Do you want to do Green Lantern?’, or ‘Do you want to take a stab at Watchmen?’, you’re immediately overwhelmed by a tremendous amount of excitement. There’s that idea of, ‘I thought about these stories when I was a kid.’”

As the writer acknowledges, working on these stories is something of a fantasy scenario.

FAN EXPECTATIONS

“I dreamed about, ‘If I could play around with these characters, here’s what I would do’,” Lindelof continues. “Now someone is actually offering that to me. But once you’re inside the process, there’s a tremendous amount of fear and trepidation that can come into play, which doesn’t really happen on the original work.

“With Lost, people are like, ‘I love that you made this thing, and also, you ruined six years of my life.’ But at least I get to take responsibility for all of that! I don’t know if I’d be able to sleep at night if people were like, ‘You ruined Watchmen’, or ‘This Star Trek movie you made is completely outside Gene Roddenberry’s vision.’ You do feel the pressure of, not just the fan expectations, but your own expectations.”

For Aaron Pierre, meanwhile, who excels as John Stewart, the chemistry with his co-lead Kyle Chandler was evident quite quickly.

“It was very early on,” he notes. “For me, it was almost as early as the first read-through that we had at the WB lot. Inherently, there is an immense amount of pressure you put on yourself for a table read. It’s the first time many people in the creative team are hearing the words out loud from the individuals who’ve been cast. From that moment, I discovered Kyle and I shared the same philosophy, as it were, in terms of how to engage with dialogue.

“We both enjoy improvisation. There are moments when you fall off the horse, and then you get back on again. It’s a falling forward process, but as long as you do actually go forward, it’s all conducive to the project becoming the best version of itself.”

Pierre recently had a breakout performance in the Netflix action hit Rebel Ridge, while Chandler has long impressed in everything from Friday Night Lights to The Wolf Of Wall Street. Even before Lanterns debuted, the prospect of seeing them onscreen together was irresistible.

“I said to Chris Mundy recently,” recalls Pierre, “that whoever made the decision to put a council estate boy from south London with a rural Texan, they need a promotion and a raise! Because it was such a beautiful set-up from the jump, and Kyle and I have a unique dynamic. There are moments where we have a completely opposing perspective on things, and then there are moments where you would think we’re twins, with how close the similarities are.

“That is something that has spilled over really beautifully into the dynamic of these characters, which is very hot and cold, fire and ice. Yesterday, I gave the analogy – which Kyle and I sort of discovered while we were working on this – that the characters are like two dogs who are part of the same household. When they’re in the same place, they’re at one another’s necks constantly.

“But as soon as they go for a walk in the neighbourhood, and there’s another dog approaching, they bond and they’re the best of friends. You wouldn’t dare get close to one, because the other will bite your head off! That’s the dynamic of John and Hal, and it’s been a great joy to explore that.”

LEARNING THE CURVE

Returning to Lindelof, what does the writer see as the most difficult part of his job?

“Particularly with a pre-existing world like Green Lanterns,” he replies, “it’s figuring out, ‘Are we making a show for people who have a long-time affinity and understanding for these characters? Or are we making a show for people coming in completely cold?’ Because sometimes when you say, ‘Let’s just do it for everybody’, you end up pleasing nobody.

“You feel your way through by asking, ‘What if we did this?’ Ultimately, that’s how you learn the characters. But I would say the learning curve on this show was much steeper than I think any of us anticipated. Fortunately, Tom and I were under the stewardship of Chris Mundy, who had run Ozark for many years, and had just done True Detective: Night Country for HBO.

“Interestingly, he didn’t have the same connection with, and knowledge base of, Green Lantern. And yet, he was really interested in Tom’s concept. He was generating the wave we were all expected to surf on, and then everything started to fall into place. But the early days of just managing, ‘Is this for people who know Green Lantern? Is it for people who are completely and utterly unfamiliar?’ – we were flying blind.”

From Pierre’s perspective, how does he see the Lanterns as differing from other superheroes?

“One of the most special things about John and Hal is that they weren’t born with super-powers,” says the actor. “Their super-power is their heart, courage and fearlessness – they walk into the unknown with the confidence of familiarity with danger. Having that fearlessness as a super-power is a very special thing, and it’s something that’s very relatable and tangible to audience members.

REGULAR FOLKS

“I really hope when folks watch this, they leave going, ‘Where do I apply to be part of the Green Lantern corps?’ Because they’re just regular folks. Maybe you live with a John, or you’re married to a Hal. Or you have a colleague who reminds you of one of these guys, or Guy Gardner. These are people you know.”

Elsewhere in Lanterns, it’s notable that two cast members, Kelly Macdonald and Garret Dillahunt (who plays Kerry Kane’s father-in-law, cowboy William Macon) both starred in the Coen Brothers’ sublime 2007 thriller No Country For Old Men.

Does Macdonald feel her appearance in the film led to her being cast in Lanterns?

“I was a bit scared to ask why, in case it went away suddenly,” chuckles the Scottish star. “So I don’t really know why I’m involved! I assume it was because I’d worked with the director James Hawes on Black Mirror, maybe. But yeah, when you’re talking about anything filmic, it’s hard not to reference the Coen Brothers at some point.

“He was thinking about No Country For Old Men, and I thought a lot about Fargo as well. Frances McDormand’s character in that is immediately someone I thought of, when I was thinking about Sheriff Kerry.”

With California filling in for Nebraska during shooting, did Macdonald have any particularly memorable experiences whilst making the series?

“I was really surprised when we got going, actually,” she says. “I had to find somewhere to live, and I found somewhere close enough to get to the studio, cos it’s Warner Bros. But we barely filmed at the studio! It was always two-hour drives to these really out-of-the-way locations. I was driving myself, which is kind of weird – I’m from a different country, and quite often, I didn’t even know if I was heading in the right direction. I just had to trust in the GPS!

“So that was a bit nerve-racking. Every day was a bit of a test, like, ‘Am I gonna arrive at base or not?!’”

Although a vastly experienced performer, Macdonald still feels a certain tension at the start of shooting.

“I’m always really nervous on the first day,” she says. “But when we shot the football field stuff, the size of that really helped me understand the scale of what I was involved in. Also, it was so American as well. It was everything I imagined filming in America might be like – there was American football, sheriffs and so on. There was a big chase scene, I did so much running.

DEALING WITH NERVES

“I think I’ve aged so much in the past year, that even walking fast from Point A to Point B – I’d have to really ask questions before I signed on to something!”

How did she deal with the nerves?

“What I don’t do is sleep,” says Macdonald. “That’s what I hear from actors all the time. On the first day, it’s like, ‘I didn’t sleep a wink last night.’ It’s really nerve-wracking and you just try your best. On our first day, I did feel a bit of pressure, because you want to do the best you can for the people who’ve bought you there.

“There was a definite point where we did a take, and something happened where I could shake the nerves enough. I did a thing, and Chris and James were like, ‘That’s it, that’s her.’ Weirdly, that first day, we had to walk out of the house and reach our marks. I’m quite short, and mine was in a dip in the ground. It was in this sandy, dusty terrain.

“Cos it was my first day, I quietly pointed it out to someone. I went, ‘This is making me even smaller, actually.’ And the mark remained where it was!”

• The first six episodes of Lanterns are available now on HBO Max. The remaining episodes will be arriving arriving weekly until October 4.