Legends of Tomorrow's Matt Ryan Wants Constantine To Meet Zatanna in Live Action

After having dealt with the Newcastle Incident in an animated movie as well as a full season of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, and fighting through a battle with Darkseid in Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, Matt Ryan says that one of his bucket list items for Constantine is to meet Zatanna in live action. Zatanna, one of DC's most popular magical characters and Constantine's primary love interest since the start of The New 52 in most of DC's comics and the animated adaptations beginning with the first Justice League Dark movie. Ryan admits that he would be jealous if somebody else got to bring that to live action before he did.

It's a possibility: Justice League Dark is reportedly coming to HBO Max from producer JJ Abrams, and the odds are good that either Constantine or Zatanna, maybe both, will appear in the series. Nobody knows what the odds are of carrying Ryan's fan-favorite Constantine over to that series, but it seems unlikely if he remains on Legends.

"The relationship with Zatanna is something that I've not explored in live action; that's one character that I would love to see John in live action," Ryan said. "It's funny, because when I first read Dangerous Habits, which is the first comic I read, and I fell in love with that, that was primarily, it's a bit funny in a way, I feel like now that I have fleshed that out in the animation -- and we did on this season of Legends as well -- it's almost like I have to kind of find another thread now. It's a funny thing because I was hopped on that, that was such a motivational part of John for me for a long time, and what is going to be interesting about next season of Legends now is going back and kind of finding the drives now that he's evolved through that in a way, and that's interesting."

He added that if someone else were to get to do the Zatanna story before he did, he would be disappointed.

"I think I'd be disappointed. It's a funny thing isn't it?" Ryan said. "These characters -- you fall in love with these characters, and you play them, and there's so much more that's tied to so many time slots that I want to explore with Constantine. But the character's not mine. There's a part of me that goes like, 'Oh s--t, I don't want anyone else to play him.' But at the same time it's like you look at Hamlet or The Scottish Play. These are roles that have been played by lots of people over the years, so there's a part of me that is fine with that, but there's another part that goes like, 'Oh, I can do that. Let me go and do it.' Do you know what I mean? But at the same time, I'd want to explore that. I feel like there's certain colors and strokes and storylines that I've explored with John over the years in all the different mediums, but there's still more that I want to dig into stylistically as well in terms of the character in terms of the tones of where you could put them in TV shows and movies and things like that. And I still do feel that there's a huge part of me that wants to go there. And so I would be very disappointed if someone else got to go there and I didn't."

Justice League Dark: Apokolips War is available to stream now via video on demand platforms. DC's Legends of Tomorrow airs Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.