Matt Ryan on Playing Animated Constantine Compared to Live Action

Constantine actor Matt Ryan has become something of a geek icon – despite the fact that his Constantine TV series didn’t make it past its freshman season. After the show’s cancelation, Ryan’s role as Constantine was revived when the character made a cameo appearance on Arrow in season 4; next, he’ll voice an animated version of Constantine in DC’s Justice League Dark animated feature, which is only spurning fan desire for Ryan to be a part of the DC Universe.

During Heroes and Villains fanfest in Atlanta we here at Comicbook.com got a chance to talk with Ryan, and among the topics of discussion was how his animated Constantine compares to the live-action one (besides the obvious aesthetic difference).

According to Ryan, the best part of playing an animated Constantine happens to be the company you get to keep: “What’s great about it is that you get to see Constantine interacting with characters we didn’t get to see in the live-action TV show – like Zatana, Deadman, Batman,” Ryan said. “His relationship with Batman is a real funny one. That was a real good fun thing to play.”

We got a look at Justice League Dark during New York Comic-Con, and Ryan’s Constantine was a lead force in making the movie pop with humor and wit. The story of Justice League Dark revolves around the Justice League coming across a mystical attack on an innocent populace, which prompts Batman to reach out to John Constantine for advisement. Talking the lead, Constantine recruits other mystic DC heroes (Zatana, The Demon, Deadman, Swamp Thing…) and sets out to stop a demonic plot before it can come to fruition.

Justice League Dark will be in on digital download on February 7, 2017.