The Flash: Andy Mientus Reflects on His Pied Piper Journey (Exclusive)

With The CW's The Flash in its final season, a number of familiar faces have been popping up as the long-running Arrowverse series embarks on one last journey and among those faces is Hartley Rathaway/Pied Piper. Played by Andy Mientus, the former villain has, over the years, become less of an antagonist for Barry Allen/The Flash (Grant Gustin) and more of an ally and last week's episode, "Hear No Evil", saw a major turning point for Hartley with the character seemingly headed down a more heroic path after a showdown with the new version of the Fiddler (Magda Apanowicz).

But while his character has been on a long journey in the series, Mientus has as well — one that started before the show even existed. Recently, Mientus sat down with ComicBook.com to talk about his and his character's journey and what it means to get to be part of the final run.

"My journey with the show began before the show existed, and it's really gratifying to be able to finish this out all these years later," Mientus said. "I'm really thrilled to get to close it out in this season. I auditioned for the role of Barry, when it was still a recurring guest star on Arrow, when they were feeling out if it was going to be its own spinoff, when it was a backdoor pilot. And it was clear immediately that I was not the guy, but something about my tape caught David Rapaport, the casting director's attention."

Mientus explained that ultimately the powers agreed that while he wasn't right for Barry Allen, he was right for another character — Hartley Rathaway. For Mientus, he was drawn to the character immediately.

"Then a few months later, I got a call about Hartley. And as soon as I read the sides, my audition scene was the scene when I'm being carted in handcuffs," he said. "And I had that line about 'being scooped up by a guy in head-to-toe leather's a long-time fantasy of mine,' something like that. And I said, 'oh man, I have to do this.' I was like, 'oh, this is gay gay.' I'm telling a very gay joke about leather. And that was the first thing that I was like, 'I love this guy.' And then, more scenes came in, I just loved that he was gay and vulnerable, but also really scary to the heroes. Because he was kind of, at that point, the closest match Barry had found, I think. He really gave him a run for his money, because of his intellect and that he was really angry about some things in his past and sort of deservedly so. And so, I just thought it was so delicious."

He continued, "And I always held hope that they would have me back, just because I loved working on it so much and I loved the character so much. But there were several changes of team, and there are just a lot of stories to tell. And I knew that it's a huge ensemble cast, and I was very aware that there were lots of mouths to feed, narratively. So, I was always surprised and really grateful when I got to come back. And so, to get to come back in such a big way for this final season, with a smaller episode order, I'm just super, super grateful."

And from the looks of things in the preview for this week's episode, "Rogues of War", Hartley really does have a major role to play. The preview shows Hartley teaming up with Barry and some other rogues for a major mission — and it seems like Hartley may well still be giving Barry a run for his money.

The Flash airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.