When Supergirl picks up the story of J’Onn J’Onzz, the character — played by David Harewood — will be in a very different emotional place than he has been for most of the season, and it seems like it will be a little bit closer to the comfort zone that Harewood has set up for J’Onn over the first few seasons of the series. Up until now, the character has been fulfilling a request from his late father to embrace pacifism, something that Harewood admits has forced him to change the way he plays J’Onn and expand the range of what he considers to be “in character” for a guy whose skin Harewood has been living in for years.
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“It’s been really frustrating,” Harewood told ComicBook.com before backtracking slightly. “I mean, it’s been both frustrating and illuminating, and all sorts of challenges for an actor because I’ve certainly never seen J’Onn J’Onzz as a sort of peaceful warrior. In every comic I’ve read, he’s punching somebody in the face or kind of giving orders in a militaristic way. But its been really wonderful to chart this character’s new journey. As I say, it has caused frustration as well — because I’ve had to find new colors, softer colors, a softer voice. He’s being much more passive, and where we’ve seen him in previous seasons much more front-footed and…even his language is very kind of militaristic and barking orders. Whereas now, this season, he’s actually talking to people, and being conversant, just a softer tone. That’s been fun to discover. Very, very different but, as I say, as things heat up around him, the peaceful, passive J’Onn is beginning to struggle because the old J’Onn, the violent J’Onn, is really beginning to force his way out. As a character and as an actor, I’ve found that it’s been a great dichotomy to play because I feel like the old guy is bursting to get out and we’ll see that over the next two or three episodes.”
That shift kicked off in earnest recently, when J’Onn was forced to kill Manchester Black in order to save many more lives. The decision was a painful one for J’Onn, especially coming on the heels of having had such a close relationship with Black and trying so hard to “save” him. After that, we had two episodes that basically centered on Lex Luthor (John Cryer), so get ready to see the next step in J’Onn’s journey soon.
Supergirl airs on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW, followed by episodes of Charmed. The next new episode, “All About Eve,” will air on March 31 and center around the character of Eve Tessmacher, who was recently revealed to have been a plant working secretly for Lex Luthor all along.
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