Legends of Tomorrow: Shayan Sobhian Talks Slipping Into "Capitalist Behrad"

Tonight's episode of DC's Legends of Tomorrow follows through on a promise that showrunner Phil [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Tonight's episode of DC's Legends of Tomorrow follows through on a promise that showrunner Phil Klemmer made during an interview with us earlier this year: Behrad Tarazi (Shayan Sobhian) ends up, as a result of alien and temporal displacement shenanigans, being transformed into an alternate version of himself. And he's kind of a jerk. It's what happens when his favorite show as a teenager is radically changed, so it's a bit of a callback to "Raiders of the Lost Art," in which Nate and Ray had something fairly similar happen to them. It also gives us a chance to really explore the relationship between Behrad and his sister Zari (Tala Ashe).

This is the first time he Sobhian has had to play a time-altered version of his character. That's something that he has seen some of his co-stars -- especially Ashe and series lead Caity Lotz -- do numerous times throughout the years, though.

"I learned through osmosis," Sobhian joked. "Just watching Tala go back and forth, and do it so seamlessly. With this episode, I don't think there's ever going to see another appearance by the other Behrad. I think this is a very contained version of what Caity and Tala have done, where it's like, 'okay, this is one story, that involves multiple iterations of myself. And so it was fun. Kind of know that and to be able to put it all together and like really track it methodically throughout."

This is something that has been floating around since the week of the premiere, of course.

"We actually devote a whole episode to Behrad, episode 9 of this season," Klemmer told ComicBook. "It's interesting, because he's such an easygoing, laid-back guy, that invariably people take those kinds of personalities for granted. Because they're so easygoing, their grooviness can almost make you forget how important it is to have that kind of low-key energy around, especially when we have so many tempers on the Waverider. So we did this episode, which is kind of our Baby Yoda episode, in the middle of the season. It features a very adorable, animatronic alien, who unfortunately is not as sweet as Baby Yoda. But it also explroes a timeline in which Behrad's origin story is compromised by this alien, and he becomes a different person. All of a sudden, the Legends, including or even primarily Zari, realize that 'oh my God, this laid-back stoner, yoga-posing peacenik that we all take for granted is being replaced by something quite different, and now it's like, 'how do we get Behrad back?'"

DC's Legends of Tomorrow airs on Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.

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