The Flash's Keiynan Lonsdale: Wally Will Make Decisions He Usually Would Not

Tonight on The CW's The Flash, Wally West (Keiynan Lonsdale) will come face to face with a truth [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Tonight on The CW's The Flash, Wally West (Keiynan Lonsdale) will come face to face with a truth that Barry (Grant Gustin) has been keeping with him since the beginning of season 3: that in the "Flashpoint" timeline, Wally was The (Kid?) Flash.

In response, Wally will (like other characters who had powers in the Flashpoint timeline and don't on Earth-1) face a choice: will he enter into a Faustian pact with Alchemy in order to gain the powers he so desires?

"It will be quite clear Wally is in a different place," Lonsdale told ComicBook.com. "Alchemy's in his head at a lot of points. As an actor, it was a great challenge to be able to step out of the Wally that I've been playing up til now, and playing him in this huge struggle in his own life. That was definitely interesting, and we'll see him make choices that he wouldn't normally do. As much as he's a good guy, there's a lot of going through some pain and he's desperate for these powers, so it's very tempting."

While Alchemy's two biggest test cases were both villains, Lonsdale says that Wally might be more susceptible to manipulation than audiences might think. While the Flashpoint versions of those characters were villains, after all (and while they were villains again once powered up and set loose on Earth-1), it's not as though their non-powered counterparts were evil before Alchemy got involved. Cases in point: The Rival (Todd Lasance) and Magenta (Joey King).

"The main thing that's happening is that Alchemy has been giving people these powers that they had in Flashpoint, and giving them this strong desire to want to be those people," Lonsdale explained. "The Rival, for example, he's a good guy in this timeline, but the desire took over. We don't yet know Alchemy's reasons behind all of this, but we would hope that the team can certainly learn a whole lot more soon, becuase they need to get on top of it, especially when it's affecting people on their own side."

The actor said that one of the most interesting elements of acting opposite Alchemy is the fact that the ghastly mask and the other actor's presence made the character a little scary -- not unlike Zoom last year -- so that while he didn't have the opportunity to see into his co-star's eyes and bounce off their expressions, the audience still got to see him "reacting" to the villain in an honest way.

FLA306b_0052b
(Photo: The CW)

There are two weeks before The Flash is part of the big four-way Invasion! crossover -- and that's something that Lonsdale absolutely took an interest in when he got the script.

"I think that's definitely something that my inner child is like, 'Oh, what do I get to do? Do I get to do some cool, crazy stuff?" He admitted. "This crossover is huge. There's so many players in it and I think that was the most exciting thing, was seeing so many teams and players come together and collide in a sense."

Meanwhile, though, having Wally and Caitlin step up and draw some focus in these pre-crossover episodes can be an opportunity to tell a different kind of story.

"I think it allows you to get a better insight into what these characters are dealing with," Lonsdale said. "And yeah, I'm sure that however many scenes Caitlin or Wally has, hopefully Grant finally has a little bit of a break."

The Flash airs Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.

Trending Now: