The April 25th episode of The Flash will show Barry traveling years into the future to see what happens the day he disappears. While I'm sure it was challenging and maybe pure luck that The Flash team managed to premiere this long teased revelation on the exact day he would make the journey, that wasn't the only challenge of filming this future episode. Barry Allen actor Grant Gustin shares some insight into playing both his present and future self in the quote below:
It's a lot of scenes with Barry and Barry, and they're pretty emotional scenes from both sides. . . . [Future Barry is] about eight years older, which in a way made it more challenging for me, because it wasn't like, 'This is my grizzled, older self. They were some of the more challenging scenes I've done --- if not just this year, in the whole series, because I'm my own scene partner.
So, at first I was about to blast Grant Gustin for not knowing his math and pointing out that the gap between April 25th, 2017, and April 25th, 2024, is a span of seven years, but some quick Google-fu revealed to me that Barry Allen's birthday is somewhere between January and March 18th, 1989, so he is correct after all. Just looking at the trailer for the episode I have to say that, despite his long hair and obvious depression, Future Barry looks good for 36 years old. That seems to be the challenge that Gustin is referring to as he indicates to TVLine the difficulty in selling the change in character without looking old and haggard ala future Oliver Queen in Legends Of Tomorrow. Future Barry is still mourning the loss of Iris eight years down the road, and while that sounds reasonable, he looks like a guy who's still feeling as though it happened yesterday.
For Grant Gustin to say these were the most challenging scenes he's filmed in The Flash is really saying something, considering he's already done something like this before. Gustin filmed a scene with himself when Barry and Cisco kidnapped Earth 2 Barry so that he could go undercover. Perhaps the difference between the two incidents is Earth 2 Barry was essentially Barry with glasses, where Future Barry is the same Barry but also changed through the years of coping with the death of Iris. Having talked myself through the differences between characters, I can completely understand how this latter situation might be more challenging than the former.
We'll see how well Grant Gustin manages to pull those scenes off when The Flash returns Tuesday, April 25th at 8 p.m. ET on CW. It'll be a solid block of heroes as Supergirl and Arrow make their returns as well. Pretty soon you DC fans are going to have a hole in your lives so why not prepare for that day now by browsing the new and returning shows on our midseason premiere guide and summer premiere schedule?
