Titans Boss Reveals Why He 'Flipped' Over Lex Luthor Casting, Previews Season 4's 'Destiny Vs. Fate' Theme
The Titans swing back into action this Thursday, when Season 4 of the superhero team-up series kicks off on HBO Max.
In Season 4, the titular heroes, as teased in the last October's finale, are en route back to San Francisco when no less than Lex Luthor (played by Bosch's Titus Welliver) reaches out — in a very Lex Luthor way — to meet his son, Connor Kent (Joshua Orpin). As if that wasn't enough for the Titans to fret about, they also land in the crosshairs of a supernatural cult led by May Bennett aka Mother Mayhem (The Bridge's Franka Potente). Oh, and there's a mild-mannered guy named Sebastian (The Originals' Joseph Morgan's) who is struggling with some very troubling visions.....
TVLine spoke with Titans showrunner Greg Walker about Season 4's themes and supernatural threats, Lex Luthor's hirsute look and more. (Titans Season 4 launches Nov. 3 with its first two episodes, followed by weekly releases through Dec. 1. An additional six episodes will be released in 2023.)
TVLINE | First off, I was curious: What has it been like being a creative in the DC world these past few months?
GREG WALKER | You know, it's been quiet for us, because we have our own little self-enclosed world of toiling away, trying to figure out how to make these giant episodes, and then posting them. So we're kind of removed from a lot of that. Certainly on a corporate level, we are treated very kindly and have been the entire way. I mean, I read the headlines like everybody else, but it doesn't affect us.
TVLINE | Do you know James Gunn (who is now co-CEO of DC Films)? Ever run into him?
I appeared on a panel with him a long time ago, maybe 20 years ago...? I thought he was fantastic, and as a filmmaker, wow. It's very exciting.
TVLINE | There was no Season 4 tease at all in the last Titans finale, so I couldn't tell: Did you not want to show you hand, or were you waiting to lock into a villain?
Well, we didn't know if we would come back. Plus, a lot of it comes from what our villain is going to be and where we're going. We knew we'd be on a road trip, but the process of clearing a villain really takes a long time internally. And we're crawling to the finish often on these things, so we didn't have the bandwidth to figure out what the next season was. I've heard that often, that it would have been so cool have to have a tease — and the network asked if we had one — but it was a real struggle to get [Seasons 2 and 3] done in COVID.
TVLINE | Is there a theme for Titans Season 4?
Destiny. Destiny and fate. Destiny versus fate. The idea of, "Are you on a path where an invisible hand is moving you along, and can you alter that path individually? Or do you succumb to what you're meant to do? And is that the better way?" That struggle and the question of individual action versus a larger, determining force is what affects almost all the characters.
TVLINE | In particular, having seen the first four episodes, I feel like Rachel, Gar and Connor (played by Teagan Croft, Ryan Potter and Joshua Orpin) are going through a lot of stuff. Is that by design, to put the "kids" through the wringer?
Not by design, because Kory (Anna Diop) is going to go through the wringer too. And we don't really put Dick (Brenton Thwaites) through the wringer because, god bless him, he's gone through it a lot on this show! Instead he has to manage the chaos and keep the family together. So it was by design to have that theme challenge everybody. And some characters we had been waiting for a long time to go deeper with — like Gar, specifically, and Connor.
TVLINE | I feel like Kory — more than ever before — is a true partner with Dick this season.
Yeah, for sure. Dick's issues with Bruce were so profound that it often blocked him off from people. He still had a humanity in him — that's really why we like Dick Grayson, and what makes Nightwing different from Robin in a lot of ways — but he wasn't quite yet ready to lead the team in a way that allowed for him to co-lead. And this is the year where you really felt like it's a two-hander for the two of them (Dick and Kory). It's the right time for it.
TVLINE | I thought it spoke volumes that Kory has the big first scene with Lex Luthor. Like, watching that scene, I was thinking, "This is a huge vote of confidence, that Kory got to have this important two-hander."
Did you like Anna Diop in that scene? I thought she was terrific.
TVLINE | There is a lot of mystery surrounding the supernatural elements in these early episodes. What do you want to say about Mother Mayhem's agenda and how it involves Sebastian?
I don't know how much you have seen, but when you get through Episode 4, you realize that this is a woman who is intent on rewriting a prophecy. Or, she believes that her prophecy is the one that she is going to single-handedly, through sheer will, make real. The season is a lot about the people who feel unseen. Sebastian certainly does, and May Bennett, when you meet her, does. These origin stories for characters who believe that they are destined for something greater and are going to try to make it happen, and have some prophecy pushing them, is what we're excited to tell.
TVLINE | Jinx is a fun character to introduce, and Lisa Ambalavanar (The A List, Doctors) is clearly having a ball with the role. Talk about bringing on that character for Season 4.
Once we decided to really jump into the world of magic, Jinx became someone who would be a great guide or emissary to that world, to help us understand it a bit. She's a trickster, she's "chaotic neutral," she's someone who is constantly shifting agendas based on where she has leverage in the moment.... But she also has a past with Dick Grayson which kind of clouds her shadiness at times and makes her a bit better of a person than probably she'd want to be.
TVLINE | OK, so you get the green light to bring on Lex Luthor, you go to cast him.... What does Greg Walker want from that role? Or does he simply want Titus Welliver?
It wasn't my idea, so I can't take credit for it. It was [executive producer] Greg Berlanti's idea. Whenever I get a list of [approved] characters, I see if I can corral Greg for five minutes where he's not doing one of his many jobs, and he threw out a gem with this idea. When I heard it, I flipped, because I've been a Titus fan for decades, from way back when he started, and I just knew what he could do in terms of being an amazing character actor. But he's a leading man, too, on his own show (Freevee's Bosch: Legacy), so he has the charisma of a leading man and the craft of a great character actor.
What I wanted was to watch a guy struggle with mortality. These titans of the world, the Rupert Murdochs and now maybe Elon [Musk] at some point, they get past the point of accumulation and they get to be obsessed with legacy, so I wanted to see a guy trying to figure out legacy instead of evil. He fully knows what he's capable of, but how does he deal with legacy if he can't cheat mortality?
TVLINE | Was it Titus' own look at the time that influenced the beard, were you trying to mirror what Jon Cryer did as Lex on Supergirl, is it a nod to a comics run...?
It was not our first call; Titus wanted it. He's a huge fan of Titans and all things DC, so it was his idea that he really wanted to do it. I was like, "Yeah, let's go for it."
TVLINE | Do you have a favorite fight scene from this season?
Oh man, I love our fights this year. I'm super-pumped about them. I love the Kory fight in Episode 1; I think it is really a unique way of showing a fight sequence. And there's some terrific moments in the Mother Mayhem/Titans fight, which certainly shows what we can do on a CG level.
It's funny, people forget that we have 1/30th the budget of major movies [Laughs] and we're doing a lot of the stuff that those movies do. We're really blessed, and I love our fights. When I was "handed the bo staff" of this show, [the directive] was, "Make it look like a show people would pay for; make it award-winning cinematography that looks like a movie; and set a new standard for a level of fights, 'bring John Wick to television.'" And I feel like we hit that last one in a strong way. The work our fight team does is extraordinary.
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