‘Legends of Tomorrow’ Star Matt Ryan Wants to Play Constantine on ‘Swamp Thing’

Matt Ryan, who played John Constantine in the NBC series Constantine, then moved on to portray him in animated form as well as in Arrow and on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, hopes to take it one step further and play the role of the famed DC demonologist on the forthcoming Swamp Thing series for DC Universe. He told the audience during a panel at Wizard World Cleveland that he is still looking to expand his empire as the character he has become so closely associated with over the years. “John Constantine was born in Swamp Thing,” Ryan told the audience. “Eventually, he has to be on Swamp Thing, and I just hope it’s me.”

Ryan, who says he has assumed his role as Constantine was over after the completion of each project so far, delights in surprising himself and the audience by coming back. “I’m still playing this role four years after Constantine was actually cancelled, so I must be doing something right,” Ryan joked. He is also a big fan of the darker stories he was able to do with Constantine: City of Demons and Justice League: Dark, the hard-core, animated features that he did as Constantine. That will match up with the horror-inspired Swamp Thing series. John Constantine first appeared in an issue of Swamp Thing before getting his own series, which became Vertigo’s longest-running comic.

“We always set out to make Swamp Thing as hard R as we could and go graphic with the violence, with the adult themes and make it as scary as possible,” series writer and showrunner Gary Dauberman explained of the show’s approach during an interview with Slash Film. “Because we’re doing it through the DC streaming service, they really pushed us, although they didn’t have to push hard, for us to go as extreme as we could. We really took our inspiration from the Alan Moore run in Swamp Thing, this landmark I think run. Fans of that series will know it gets pretty weird and extreme and scary. We really wanted to live up to that standard that Moore set up back in the ’80s.”

The show will make use of practical effects for the title character rather than relying on its smaller budget to create the character with computer generated effects.

“Then of course it allows us, Swamp Thing himself looks incredible what Justin Raleigh and the guys over at Fractured are doing with the suit,” Dauberman said. “So it’s going to look amazing and less of the ‘man in suit’ that you’ve seen in the movie and the other TV show.”

Swamp Thing will premiere on DC Universe later on this year.

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