The Flash: Danielle Panabaker on Creating the Show’s Future in Her Directorial Debut

Earlier this season, The Flash star Danielle Panabaker made her directorial debut with “Godspeed”, an episode of The CW series focusing largely on Nora West-Allen’s (Jessica Parker Kennedy) story. With the episode being largely an origin story for the character, most of the action took place in the future — 2049 to be exact. It offered a fresh take on what the future of the Arrowverse might look like at least in terms of Central City and according to Panabaker it’s one that she enjoyed being able to create.

During a panel with co-star Carlos Valdes (Cisco Ramon) at Fan Expo Dallas Panabaker opened up about the experience of creating The Flash’s future, including the sizeable challenge of doing it on a television budget.

“I loved it. I, you know, I loved it,” Panabaker said. “It was a fantastic experience. I was so lucky, I had amazing script, so much support from everyone on set. Being… it was awesome to get to tell Jessica’s origin story, Nora’s origin story and she was brave. Creating the year 2049 on an aesthetic TV budget was a challenge. That was one of the biggest challenges.”

Panabaker went on to explain that there were certain things she wasn’t able to get — namely specific cars — but that some of what she was able to get came down to just being ready mere minutes before it was time to film.

“I know, I was like begging for those cars,” Panabaker said. “We couldn’t afford them, I was like ‘I don’t know what to do!’ So that definitely was the biggest challenge. You know, there were some scheduling issues, just all sorts of different things. You know, the Godspeed suit looks amazing, but I think it was finished about three minutes before we put it on camera. Like, no joke it was down to the wire. You know, little stuff like that.”

It’s a similar sentiment to what Panabaker told ComicBook.com ahead of the episode, relating that crew had a very short period of time to create 2049 for the show.

“I did everything I could to be as prepared as possible, and I got an unbelievable script, and then I got an overwhelming amount of support,” Panabaker said. “It was asking a lot of people to create 2049 in a week’s notice, and everyone really just brought their A-game and did an unbelievable job.” Asked whether she had looked to the other Arrowverse shows for guidance on how the future should look or feel, she said no. “Particularly with this storyline, it operates a little bit independently…so I didn’t look to the other shows for this particular instance. I just wanted to create Nora’s world as authentically to her as possible.”

The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.

What did you think of Panabaker’s vision for Central City 2049? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.