Rahul Kohli Heads to Supergirl En Route To His Goal of Unseating Ben Affleck’s Batman

Fans of iZombie likely know Rahul Kohli as the charming, funny, and often show-stealing Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti, essentially the series’ most significant male lead and the first season’s most surprising breakout character. Tonight, he heads to Supergirl to play a wildly different character — and to win over a skeptical audience as he does so.

A vocal segment of the Supergirl fandom have been hoping to explore chemistry between Katie McGrath’s Lena Luthor and Melissa Benoist’s Kara Danvers/Supergirl, so when the synopsis for tonight’s episode revealed that Kohli will be playing an ex-boyfriend of McGrath’s, eager to make his way back into her life, the excitement that many fans felt at Kohli being cast in the “Arrowverse” was offset slightly by backlash from the Lena/Kara shippers.

That’s fine by Kohli, who has had to win his way into the hearts of a skeptical fandom once before — iZombie was a show many didn’t expect to last a season, and it’s now on its third and beloved by its audience.

Kohli joined ComicBook.com to talk about tonight’s episode of Supergirl, titled “Ace Reporter,” and what it means to him to join the DC superhero universe

With your recent move to DC All Access, and now this, it feels like you’re becoming a go-to guy for DC these days.

Yeah, I’m working my way up to replace Ben Affleck. That’s the goal — as Batman. So I figured DC All Access, Supergirl, and then hopefully a Batman film. That’s the trajectory, man.

I thought you were going to say you were going to replace Jim Lee.

No, no, I’m not that good. No one could replace Jim Lee.

When you get a script like this, do you hope to see yourself in the costume?

You know what? I don’t usually have any expectations, simply because from watching other interpretations of these characters from the pages, they usually do change quite heavily from their comic book origins. So I had done some research because I wasn’t familiar with Biomax. All I could really find was a stint on Green Arrow, and he’s a gas. Then judging from the audition I got, it was to do with nanobot technology, so I knew that was already a big change in his origin and the character.

What excited me was to be a part of the Berlanti universe. That was siomething that was a nice surprise. I didn’t think that was going to happen while still serving iZombie, so that was fun.

Obviously you guys film 100 yards from one another. Is that weird as a DC fanboy, thinking it probably wouldn’t happen?

You know what? I don’t think superheroes are going anywhere anytime soon. I also shouldn’t say this, but there is still another company as well making a ton of comic book content, and a ton of indie books are being made into TV and film. So I didn’t feel like this was something I was missing out on doing iZombie, which in itself is a comic book.

I think the general feeling we all have, when looking back at Smallville and shows like that, is that they’re there for a long time. They’re there for ten seasons it looks like. You probably expect those shows to last a lot longer than we expected iZombie to probably last. I’m happy to stick on iZombie and tell that story for as long as possible, and I think that by the time we are done with iZombie, there’s still going to be plenty of superhero stuff to jump on board.

Obviously your character has a history with Lena.

That’s probably the most enticing thing about playing that character is not so much to do with the nanobots or his appearance in National City. The real story here is about Lena and this ex-boyfriend who comes right back into her life. It was interesting as well because with iZombie, I’ve had years of working with Aly [Michalka] now, where we’ve slowly crafted a nice chemistry and we’re very close and we very much enjoy working with one another. We’ve taken our time developing it and pushing it and whatever.

With Supergirl, you move straight into a one-episode arc and you have to build so much backstory and so much subtext, and you really have to either work very hard or get very lucky. With Supergirl, we got very lucky, I think. We clicked very quickly. Our first scene was actually to deal with the matter of the heart, and that was an interesting place to jump into and dive in headfirst. I’m very proud of what we did there.

Is it a little ironic that this is coming right on the heels of the —

[Laughs] I know what you’re going to say.

–the Katty Kupps thing where you reconnected with your ex on iZombie last week?

Yeah, it’s interesting, right? I go two, three years without being anyone’s love interest, and then I have three weeks of breaking hearts and messing around and stuff. Obviously, I’m the funny man on iZombie. Ravi is much more than a schtick or a comedy or a tool for that. But Supergirl took that right away. I’m coming straight in as a love interest. So I know the pressures — I’ve watched Robert Buckley do that and I’ve learned from the best, so hopefully I do that justice.

How is it to play someone who’s kind of a villain? Everyone kind of knows you as the nicest guy on the show.

In terms of Jack Spheer and the villainy stuff, it’s actually not as cut and dry as it may appear. The formula is pretty familiar, as far as the villain of the week, so when you enter a role — particularly one who’s a villain in the comic books — everyone assumes that I’m coming there to twirl my mustache. That’s actually not the case; they’ve handled this incredibly well and it’s a lot more unpredictable than people might think.

In saying that, there are still shades of gray with that character. I shouldn’t say this because I’m setting myself up for a fall before it comes out, but this is me in my element. Ravi, and the comedy? That was always the stretch. Before iZombie I was always playing villains, bad guys, guys with issues. Supergirl is a much more comfortable experience for me than even iZombie in some respects.

How is it playing off of Melissa? One of the really interesting dynamics this season is Katie and Melissa, so having a third wheel come into that is something that fans immediately stood up and took notice of.

Yeah, they did. [Laughs] It was interesting; I went into it naive. I was slightly ignorant to the intricacies of their relationship and to the fans and what they want for that relationship, and what they were expecting. I got a crash-course lesson on Tumblr and Twitter; it didn’t take long for me to realize what I was walking into.

It was interesting and slightly intimidating. On my show, we have our own dialogue and relationship with the iZombie fandom and that’s one where, as you’re aware, I’m quite blunt. I feel like because it’s my show, I’m able to communicate with the fans and talk to them in a very direct way. Supergirl, I’m a guest in someone else’s house.

A lot of people weren’t particularly happy to find out that Lena had an ex-boyfriend, but for me, it’s interesting and I’m very excited by that. I think the episode is a great episode and I think it’s handled extremely well. Jack’s presence does not in any way affect the dynamic between Katie and Melissa and their characters. I think a lot of it is just to do with misinformation and not knowing much about the episode until they’ve seen it. I think once they’ve seen the episode, a lot of people will be happy.

Is that kind of a position you’re familiar with, in terms of having to claw your way into people’s hearts? I feel like that’s where iZombie started.

A little bit. I think there is an element of that. We definitely have to prove ourselves to a lot of people. People were skeptical of our show based on the title and the premise and being in a market that’s saturated in terms fo zombies.

Supergirl was a little bit different, but again it’s one of those things where — and I’m sure this will happen in my career — I will be playing roles that, a lot of people might not be very happy that I’m being cast in that role, for whatever reason. It’s a great motivation to do the work and make sure you give the best performance that you can and win them over that way. I’d rather have people doubt and not have you there and for you to prove them wrong, than to have them excited and for you to let them down. I like that challenge. I’m very confident, I’m very excited, and I’m not going to do the typical actor thing to stay off social media.