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Think of this as a titanic edition of Matt’s Inside Line.
Prior to hitting the red carpet for the world premiere of the DC Universe streaming service’s Titans (new episodes release every Friday), I solicited questions from you, the TVLine readership. The response was impressively super, and though the Titans cast and EPs endeavored to keep some secrets, scoopy/spoilery vittles are to be found in the Qs-and-As below:
“What mindset does Teagan Croft get into for the role of Raven?”
“It’s interesting because when you do it for nine months, you get into a rhythm,” Croft shared. “As soon as I step on set, when I get the wig and makeup on, and the costume, it really helps get into that head space. I’m not really Teagan anymore, I’m Raven. Also, it’s about being quieter than I am in real life!”
“What arc does Starfire have in the first season?”
Currently battling amnesia and about to make the acquaintance of Raven, “She starts to find out who she is,” said portrayer Anna Diop. “She’s very instinctive, so sometimes she’ll have the urge to do something, and she’ll just do it. Like, ‘Oh, I guess I have this power!’”
“Any chance we’re going to get some LGBT characters?”
“Of course,” affirmed executive producer Geoff Johns. Perhaps alluding to Miguel Jose Barragan aka Bunker, he said, “There’s one Titan that already is gay, that we’ve talked about bringing on — probably next season.”
“We know Donna Troy is showing up. Are we going to see her friendship with Kory explored?”
“It’s an interesting relationship that comes about when Donna Troy (played by Man in the High Castle‘s Conor Leslie) and Starfire meet… You’ll have to watch!” teased Diop. Asked to at least preview the circumstances under which the ladies cross paths, she politely deferred, “I can’t, because I think it will give too much away.”
“Will the whole team have costumes eventually?”
The Titans “are all young people from dysfunctional systems trying to form one on their own,” said executive producer Akiva Goldsman. “And as they start to find themselves, they’ll start to find the costumed identities we recognize.”
“Will we be seeing the infamous Titans Tower anytime soon?”
“Over Geoff Johns’ dead body,” quipped Goldsman, with a nod to the fellow EP and former DC Entertainment CCO.
“What mindset does Ryan Potter get into for the role of Beast Boy?”
“I always lead with honest intention of the character,” Gar’s 23-year-old portrayer shared. “Everything has to come from not a childish mentality, but he can’t seem dumb…. He’s a kid in a candy store. He’s the light at the end of a dark hallway — and we can be in a dark hallway sometimes on this show.”
“Are we going to get a story arc about Starfire’s Tamaranean heritage? Maybe even a Blackfire appearance?”
To the former, Diop freely avowed, “Yes, yes we are” going to get into the Tamaran of it all, in part via flashbacks. But as for meeting Starfire’s sister, she (again) hedged, “You will have to wait and see!”
“Will Raven learn magic?”
“Raven will learn to harness her power, which is magic,” Croft shared. (And in response to another reader Q, she confirmed, “Yes, she can heal.”)
“What type of relationship would you say Raven and Beast Boy have in the show?”
Croft says that as dark and twisty as Rachel can be, her rare, lighter moments “are with Beast Boy, because Gar is the only one who can make her smile and make her happy.”
“Will Dick and Kory’s relationship be explored in the first season?”
“We do explore our relationship,” starting with the Friday, Oct. 26 episode, says series lead Brenton Thwaites. “Through a series of events, [Kory] kind of fulfills Dick’s role when he loses Rachel and she becomes a surrogate protector for Rachel. Through that, we meet and then form a relationship over the course of the season” — one that, he says, “warms down, warms up, like an old kettle!”
“Who’s the villain of Season 1?”
“There is a Big Bad,” said Thwaites, though it is not the person we see the Nuclear Family report to at the end of Episode 3. Rather, that person “is the guy behind the guy,” Thwaites revealed. Dick’s portrayer then described the Big Bad thusly: “The evil force on this show has multiple different colors and visions; it is a human, played by a human actor; and there are sci-fi elements to it.” Roll it all together and you get a final boss who “requires us all to band together, to use all our skills to overcome him.”
“Will Dick Grayson become Nightwing?”
Ahh, the million-dollar Bat-question. “That’s the long game,” said Goldsman. With Season 2 already greenlit, “Our whole first season is an origin episode, the birth of the team.” Added Johns: “Obviously, Dick Grayson’s evolution from Robin to Nightwing is a big part of his character, and at some point he will evolve into that.”
Want more scoop on Titans, or for any other show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line.
I am not impressed. They have destroyed the originality of Teen Titans.
Says someone who only watched the damn cartoons
Cartoons, comics, and all the original based teen Titans. It’s these special interest groups that are never happy with anythin so they want to make everyone else suffer by changing what doesn’t suit their fetishes.
The show is based heavily on the 1980/81 comic books. That was the original version of Raven and Starfire. Beast Boy goes even further back to the original Doom Patrol comics in the 1960s.
No, you’re an idiot. This does not reflect the original comics at all. I hate people who say that this isn’t like the original cartoon but more like the comics. This is nowhere near the comics. I don’t remember any of the Titans killing people, and I definitely don’t remember Starfire being a black hooker, Raven being a young brat who is afraid of herself, and Beast Boy not being green.
I said “based”. Apparently you missed that word.
Starfire did had multiple moments where she was either willing or had kill people, to the concern of Robin and Donna Troy, among other members
Raven always had a fear of her father and inner nature, Beast Boy in the show is green when he transforms. And he said based, so it does take a lot of the original comics
Scott doesn’t what the hell he’s talking about. We aren’t going off the damn cartoons. We’re going off the original 1980 series ‘The New Teen Titans” that was created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. This is NOT STARIRE!!! Starfire never looked like a hooker, George Perez and Marv Wolfman must be rolling their eyes at the ceiling.
Starfire had worn a lot of outfits that were formfitting and even went nude, half of her costumes were more sexually promiscuous than what she is wearing in the show. This complaint has gotten old quick.
Something tells you never read the original comics and must only know the Titans from Teen Titans Go. Sad.
Arrow hasn’t been about the Green Arrow or DC since season 3 or 4. Flash fills like a retread every season. Legends was great at first but is becoming a cheese fest. Supergirl will have a great episode and then multiple bad ones. I want to like Black Lighting but the storylines drag. WB/CW used to be must see but now they have become DVR binge watch material. I don’t love all the casting on Titans but I’m enjoying the build. I think the answer is a fresh start away from the Berlantiverse. Imagine a gritty Arrow on the streaming service with language and adult situations.
Amazing show,better than all Arrowerse shows combined,on pair with Daredevil
Agreed. I’m glad it doesn’t have none of that sappy CW nonsense. DC shows needed to be like the Marvel/Netflix in terms tone from the beginning.
It definitely has soapy moments. Half of episode 2 was soap opera. But it’s a little more contained as there are fewer characters and beats.
Let put it this, if all those marvel fangirls found Zack Snyder films to dark, this ranch up that darkness far beyond anything in those films and for the better!!
I was really hoping for lots of Elektra in season 3. The reunion at the end of The Defenders made me want to watch season 3 then.
Titans is fantastic, never read the comics or watched the cartoon series but this show has really carved its own niche amongst a glut of cape tv shows. really the best one out there,
Haven’t watched the show yet, but given that it revolves around protecting Raven, isn’t the safe bet that Trigon is the mysterious Big Bad that they’re setting up?
No they said he’s human, based on the description my guess would be Brother Blood. I don’t think they’d make Trigon the big bad right out of the gate. I expect him to make an appearance before the end of the season, but just like something small, like a cameo, maybe Raven has a vision.
I hope we get red haired Kid Flash.
I watched the cartoon (can’t stand Go) and read a number of the comics and am not enjoying it so far, going to give it 1 or 2 more episodes but if it doesn’t pick up I’m done.
I’m wondering if Starfire was sent to Earth to destroy Raven, kind of how Li’landra was sent to Earth to destroy the Phoenix Force in the x-men comics. I know ones Marvel and ones DC but I can’t think of another reason she’d be looking for Raven.
I like the show a lot. Robin’s violence is really intense, and perhaps the one thing I hope is toned down over time, but I like the characters. Enough for me to add it to my weekly DC TV watchlist.
I like the portrayal of Dick Grayson so far. I’m disappointed with Raven. We don’t need another sullen borderline brat teen character, Raven is better than that.
Jury is still out on Starfire and Gar, but hoping the changes for them are better than the ones for Raven!
Why do they need LGBT characters.. what’s even the point of asking ..?
True, who cares I’m here to watch a superhero movie leave the social issue at door
I was thinking the same…What was the point of this question exactly. Who cares what sexuality any of them are. People/characters are much more than their sexuality.
As a Bi individual …I am sick of these type of ignorant questions… how are LGBT individuals ever going to be seen as ‘mainstream’ when such questions singling out characters based on sexuality are still ok to ask. Be Better TVL !!!
If you want them to be mainstream then the community should make a brand new character instead of Hi-Jacking already made characters who have always been written straight. There problem solved and less people offended on all sides.
Ask anyone who’s had a child, friend, relative “come out” to them. Most parents will say “but you’ve had girlfriends…you’ve always been straight.” And “the community” does not make new characters, the comic book writers make the new characters, which are rarely embraced.
Not a blasted thing about Starfire’s traditional appearance? She still looks like a Hooker, even in the third episode of the series. If Starfire is going to be some black urban version of the character, then I’ll be dumping this series soon.. What’s with TVLINE? The only question everyone wants to know is when will we see the real Starfire, complete with orange skin and red/orange hair. Starfire’s hair color is not pink when she isn’t using her powers. GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. SHEESH!
No one emailed me such a question, sorry! #GottaBeInItToWinIt
I agree. The shows depiction of Kory will be the death of the series if they don’t revise it.
Not really, she seems to be an interesting part of the show
1. This “black urban” thing you are harping on is your own ignorance showing. Her costuming isn’t anywhere near that aesthetic at all.
2. She’s been the kept woman of a Russian mob boss in Vienna. Of course, she shows up wearing furs and tight dresses at a night of clubbing.
3. There has been nothing in this serie’s Universe to suggest that a woman walking around with orange wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb.
I’m sure the writers at TVLine, unlike you, realized that since this is operating as more of an origin story for the Titans that Starfire wouldn’t show up in full Titans costume with her orange skin from the start.
Ah so the villain will be crazy quit.
The article mentions that Titan Tower will not be featured on the show. Yet Jason Todd points out that Batman’s Safe House is inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs. In addition, Tower 3 in the comics and Wikipedia “resembles Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece Fallingwater”. I do not believe this is a coincidence. I think the safe house is the Tower in a show that is much more realistic.