Emily Kinney Talks The Flash, The Walking Dead and More

04/14/2015 09:00 am EDT

veteran Emily Kinney makes her way to Central City to guest star on The Flash tonight, squaring off against not only the Scarlet Speedster, but The Atom, who comes in from Starling City to seek the help of S.T.A.R. Labs in perfecting his suit.

Kinney, who played kind-hearted Beth Greene for four years and change on AMC's The Walking Dead, will now play a bitter, deranged villain who goes by the name of the Bug-Eyed Bandit.

Kinney joined ComicBook.com for a conversation about The Flash.

You're playing a villain, and you're best known for a character who was very sweet and innocent. Was that a conscious choice, to say "Hey, look, I can do this?"

I don't know if there was any sort of "I want to prove to you." I just thought it sounded really fun. When the opportunity came up to work on The Flash, I thought, "Whoa, that's a really cool show." He never watched The Walking Dead, but when I told him I was going to work on The Flash, he was like, "That's my favorite show!" And the characters seemed really cool.

I will say, there was something where I said to myself, "It will be fun to play the bad guy." Beth was so fun to play and she was so sweet and had such a good heart and I loved playing her, but I think in all of us, we do have times where we get angry or we hold a grudge and it's fun to channel that into a character. For me, it was more that this just sounded fun.

Do you get to go full-crazy evil, or are you a bit more sympathetic?

I think I'm a little more out there. You do get to find out, there's a reason behind her isolation and quest to wreak havoc. You definitely learn a little bit more about her, but she's pretty bad, she's pretty evil [laughs].

The Bug-Eyed Bandit is typically an Atom villain. Did you get to play off of Brandon Routh?

Most of the stuff I did was actually by myself. So I met him but I didn't do a lot of scenes or anything with him. She's sort of isolated in her little beehive, doing things and wreaking havoc. I think that sort of adds to her character of being this computer-hacking villain, you know? The fact that she's sort of in her own little world.

I didn't get to interact with him too much, but one thing that is cool is, obviously when I looked up the Bug-Eyed Bandit, I'm very different from what that is in the comic books, so it sort of allowed freedom to create a new character.

You're kind of the opposite of Felicity in some ways...

Yeah!

So if you got a call to come over to Arrow next season, say, would you be on board for that?

Probably. I mean, I had a really nice time and it's the same group of people, same creators, even some of the same actors and stuff go back and forth. I had a really nice time working on this show and being in Vancouver, so you never know.

Beth was a big X-factor on The Walking Dead because her character didn't exist in the comics. How's that different from playing a character like this who does exist, but is wildly different? Did you do any additional preparation or were you still just focused on blazing your own trail?

It's a little of both, honestly. I obviously looked up the character and did a little bit of research, but I quickly realized that they cast me and asked me to do this, and I don't look anything like the Bug-Eyed Bandit from the comics. It's written a certain way, so I kind of quickly put that aside and thought, "Okay, now let's create a new character." That's obviously the inspiration but I look a certain way and what they come up with for costumes is obviously going to influence the character a lot, and how she talks. Those are huge things.

So I let the script and the costume and those things influence the character more.

Do you have any idea whether your character is connected in any way to H.I.V.E.?

Ohh...! I don't think so. Not that I've been told. 

You know, I kind of use the script in front of me as my outline and all the information that I have. I don't think so, but...

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